O2 disputes report critical of rebranding drive

A report into the rebranding of O2 has revealed that despite the €285 million pan-European rebranding campaign, nearly 80 per cent of O2 subscribers in the UK don't know about their operator's name change.

The company is disputing the findings published in the Summer 2002 Mobile Report from independent company Continental Research, saying that it is at odds with its own research and that it is happy with the way the name has been received.

The same "!bubbles" campaign was used in Ireland and the company here says the rebranding has succeeded. Its own research shows 51 per cent of people surveyed were aware that O2 was a mobile phone operator and 50 per cent of them were aware of the advertising campaign.

Could the differences in brand awareness be so different in the two markets given that the same creative treatment was used and that the lion's share of the budget was spent in the UK?

According to Ms Edel O'Leary, head of communications at O2 Ireland, this is possible, because of the different positioning of brand in the markets. In Ireland, O2 is, she says "neck and neck" with its competitor Vodafone, while in the UK the company is third in the market. She says the rebranding in Ireland was starting from a position of strong awareness of the Digifone brand. There are no figures available showing that people are aware that the heavilyadvertised O2 is the new name for Digifone.

Whatever about the actual figures for brand awareness, the company is about to change its advertising strategy in Ireland and has this week invited seven agencies to put forward creative pitches for the €7.6 million account.

The creative work will be split from the media planning, with the pitch for that slice of the business happening in late October.

Peter Owens DDB has had the account, both creative and media, for the past five years, producing award-winning work for the Digifone brand.

However, O2 now feels that a more "through-the-line" advertising and marketing strategy is required and is seeing the seven agencies this week to see if any can come up with the goods.

They are Irish International, Young's, Euro RSCG, McCann Erickson, Javelin, Cawley Nea and the incumbents Owens DDB. Branding campaigns will still be devised by O2's UK agency while the new Irish agency, which will start work in January, will work on local and tactical campaigns.

"We're looking for an agency that can handle a through-the-line campaign from advertising through to sales promotion and CRM," says Ms O'Leary,

"We're trying not to be too prescriptive about it because it may be the case that no agency has the capacity to meet that requirement but that's why we're looking."

Meanwhile, Peter Owens DDB, which has recently recruited Mr Derek Handley, the former head of marketing at 02, as its new managing director, will continue to work the account until December.