O2 today announced that it is planning to evolve and move the company’s iconic brand and advertising forward with a £10 million brand refresh, the most significant brand activity since launch which is due to go live on the 8th of May 2006 . The award-winning brand has contributed significantly to the company’s growth and success over the last four years and today O2 has the largest active customer base in the UK and a turnover of £4 billion. The brand refresh builds the brand further whilst maintaining its key elements of its iconic blue and bubbles which are used to demonstrate the sophistication of mobile services and the role mobile plays in our lives today. The new brand refresh also reflects O2’s continued strategy of focusing on loyalty for its customer base and placing the customer at the heart of the business. The launch of the brand refresh will break above the line on the 8th May through a wide range of media advertising including TV. The refresh and creative has been developed with VCCP and the media buying supplied by ZenithOptimedia and Agency republic for online. As part of the campaign, the recognisable brand bubbles which first represented the brand at launch in 2002 have evolved to signify the possibilities and services that O2 delivers to its customers, whilst the strapline has also evolved to “It’s your O2. See what you can do” engendering greater brand enablement for customers. The 50 second advertisement includes new animation techniques used for the first time in the UK, to create exciting new visual effects to promote O2’s fresh thinking, innovation and creativity. Two further executions have been created to combine the new look and feel of the refresh as well as integrating consumer propositions. The first proposition will run from 22nd May until the 4th June and will offer all O2 customers free music video downloads[1]. The second execution will run from 5th June for two weeks and offer customers the opportunity to download free maps to their mobile from Streetmap for three months. Commenting on the campaign, Susie Moore, O2 UK Head of Brand and Marketing Communications explains: “Our brand has contributed to the huge success of O2, it is a presence that our customers feel comfortable and want to interact with. With all brand refreshes, the timing and how you take the brand forward is critical in the future success and development of the company. As the UK market is so competitive it is important that we continue to create brand differentiation for O2 to ensure we have stand out in a crowded marketplace. We believe that this brand refresh will evolve our brand in the right way for customers and will take the company forward in terms of new products and services.” Russ Shaw, Marketing Director, O2 UK, adds: “At O2, we are committed to building on the achievements and strengths of the existing brand whilst also looking towards the future. We recognise that you can’t take customer loyalty for granted and you must always seek ways of re-engaging with them to ensure people keep coming back. By adopting innovative ways to re-energise the O2 brand, we can keep pace and evolve in line with customer demand. Through the launch of this exciting, ‘industry first’ wave of advertising and the introduction of new customer propositions, we want to make this choice simple and easy and further strengthen customer loyalty to the O2 brand.” The VCCP Creative Team, Paul Kemp and Tony Hector comment on techniques used for the brand refresh: “The new O2 commercial ‘It’s your O2’, combines elements of the real world with computer generated animation. The viewer should be unsure of what is real and what has been created, resulting in a visually stunning combination of film and CGI.”
[1] Choose up to 100 free music video downloads
press enquiries
press enquiries