WTF is the 'GIF Key' on my cell phone?

My cell phone was stolen two weeks ago so I got a replacement.
Supposedly, I can activate my new one by calling a number—which my phone is programmed to dial in order to activate.

But when I make ANY effort at dialing that number, there is this faint, barely audible but distinct little voice (scary!) that says my phone isn’t activated (well, DUH!)—and to activate, “find the GIF Key.”

Sounds like a quest in a Dungeons and Dragons game. When I try to find out on the internet what a GIF key is, I kind find out about the price having keys cut at a few local hardware stores—

And the ads are STILL popping up! Scary

—and a few cryptic references to a “GIF Key” as a (ghasp!) Grimmoir (book of spells and incantations) in the Keys of King Solomon!!!

Egad—do I have to go on a magical quest into Zoroastrianism and the realm of daemons and djinns and magical keys to activate my cell phone? And why does this cryptic little message keep coming up about my phone not being activated? Don’t they help you from the other side to activate your phone, or must we just play with it here ad nausium? What the F*** is a GIF key?