The Best O2 Advertising Campaigns
Mobile phone service provider O2 has been providing telecommunications services to UK customers, in one form or another, since 1985. At this time it was known as Cellnet, and it only became known by its current name in 2002. Since then it has become well known for its humorous and innovative advertising campaigns. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the best television adverts that the company has produced in recent years.
Niggles and Narks – In these O2 adverts, we meet several characters from the company’s ‘Niggles’ campaign, which was launched to promote its broadband services. The ‘No-Support-a-Saurus’ – a rotund, big-tongued creature – represents unhelpful call centre workers, and slides around a hilly landscape on a chair. The Crafty Cost Nark, on the other hand, is a slender two-headed figure in sunglasses who delights in delivering unexpected bills to customers. The Mystery-Speed Mook is a dog-like monster that resembles inconsistent broadband speeds. Needless to say, each of these unpopular creatures gets its comeuppance at the end of the ads.
Rubber Ducks – These adverts use rubber ducks to draw attention to a number of key O2 services. Unlimited social media access is represented by a swimming pool full of ducks, surrounded by fireworks, beach balls and the like. In its advert for unlimited calls and unlimited texts, we see a solitary duck at sea get reunited with hundreds of ducks – representing the user’s ‘reconnection’ with his or her contacts. The ‘Top Up Surprises’ advert sends the ducks on an international adventure, past crocodiles, down waterfalls and across stormy seas, only to be hooked by an O2 customer on a British riverbank.
Happy Homes – To promote its broadband services, O2 created an advert consisting of a long, panning shot of various British homes. The houses have been given human facial expressions, with the first few looking angry or upset, and the latter buildings looking joyous and content – the implication being that the happy homes are the homes that use the company’s broadband services.
Thinking of You – These adverts feature a half-man/half-goat creature, who very soberly explains some of the O2 services on offer. The rationality of the goat character is contrasted with the surreal, mythical settings, which typically feature a squirrel riding a bike/looking through a telescope etc. The adverts are intended to show that the company values its existing customers more than winning new ones.
Simplicity – The Simplicity adverts feature what looks like molten metal on a circuit board, which forms itself into text that corresponds with the concurrent narration. The molten metal eventually drips down to form the shape of a SIM card, which then disappears and is replaced by the familiar brand logo on a blue background, with the slogan ‘We’re better, connected’.
These adverts are just a small sampling of the many campaigns that O2 has conducted since it was launched in the early 2000s. We could go further back in time, and look at the adverts that the company produced when it was known as BT Cellnet – including a memorable ad from 1985 featuring Tom Baker – but perhaps we should save that for another article…
A quick look at some of the famous advertising campaigns used by O2 since 2002. Many O2 products can be found on online retailers such as Amazon and eBay
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