Aptus Consultants

O2 Media, the operator’s media sales division, will actively encourage its 20m subscribers to opt in via a dedicated website to receive personalised SMS and MMS alerts from brands, with a maximum rate of one every day to discourage accusations of spamming.

These will include exclusive offers such as money-off deals and promotions that will be targeted at subscribers based on the information they provide on registering for the service, including their age, gender, location and cultural, musical, sporting and culinary tastes.

The service marks the first significant ad proposition from O2 Media since it launched in November 2008. It comes as the 20-strong sales team prepares to move into a central London office in the new year.

O2 Media is building on initial targeted ad campaigns for clients including Fitness First and NatWest, as well as existing SMS promotions for ticketing service O2 Priority and Top-up Surprises.

Shaun Gregory, MD of O2 Media, said it was vital for the operator to react to demand from advertisers by offering highly targeted inventory.
“The strategy we have and believe in is around true personalisation,” said Gregory.

“When you have a great experience for O2 customers, provide targeted opportunities for advertisers and deliver great response rates it’s a really intelligent win-win situation.”

David Fieldhouse, mobile manager for media agency Mediacom, said the service was similar to the model adopted by ad-funded MVNO Blyk, now in a partnership with Orange.

“It’s like Blyk with scale,” he said. “Personalisation, coupled with scale, is the way forward for mobile because they are its unique points and can be harnessed for advertisers.”

O2 More will look to grow rapidly to more than 200,000 subscribers via a marketing campaign across its own properties.

The move comes as rival operator Orange prepares to start using the targeting technology it acquired following the partnership it agreed with Blyk in July.

In what will represent a competing service to O2 More, within weeks Orange will launch a service that will target subscribers to its music streaming tariff, Monkey, with relevant SMS messages from brands including Channel 4 and Universal Music.