The Story of O2

Background

O2 is a story of a corporate transformation and astonishing business success. In April 2002, BT Cellnet was a troubled business, consistently losing ground to its competitors. A month later it was reborn as O2.

Today O2 is the most successful operator in the world’s toughest telecoms market, leading its competitors on all key metrics. O2 has made on-going improvements to the structural facets of its business, but the most significant change has been the re-engineered brand that has provided the operating principles for how O2 behaves and communicates. Undoubtedly, O2’s continued success has been testament to a well-managed and gradual evolution of the brand. The launch ushered in a new era of technological confidence and personal enablement. O2 recognised how personal communication had become “essential to life” (the oxygen of communication), with the endline captured the essential empowering nature of the category – see what you can do.

In 2005 O2 turned the acquisition-led market on its head by focusing on its existing customers. This customer-centric agenda, expressed through the line A World that Revolves around you, not only drove retention but helped O2 rise from the third placed operator to number one in the market. More recently O2 has looked to create further added value for its customers through its sponsorship equities, the most significant and successful of which is The O2. Customer benefits such as Priority ticketing have cemented O2’s position as the most successful UK network. The case of O2 demonstrates how brand engineering can transform not just the metrics of a business, but the morale of its staff, the esteem of the public, its ability to sustain competitive advantage and its potential to deliver future earnings.

O2’s communication strategy has addressed one of the key challenges facing a business operating in a mature market - how to build an attractive long-term brand whilst at the same time delivering short-term revenue growth. Since its inception the vast majority of O2’s marketing funds have supported sales-driving initiatives. Yet because of its brand-centric approach, all communication is unusually effective in securing both long-term differentiation and long-term sales.