O2 splashes 5m on brand overhaul

 O2 is scrapping the “It’s your O2” brand positioning in favour of “We’re better, connected” in a £5m brand refresh and advertising push. The mobile phone company says the new strapline better reflects its activities in an “increasingly fragmented” society.

The refresh has been developed by Vallance Carruthers Coleman Priest and Motion Theory. A brand campaign will break on April 10 across TV, outdoor, cinema and online, with media planning and buying by ZenithOptimedia.

The work continues the brand’s use of bubbles and blue backgrounds, with “added humanity and warmth” that it says has been less evident in the past. The ad begins under water with a bubble that travels into the “quirky and surreal” O2 world where communities connect.

O2 says the strategy was devised around the need for consumers to feel part of a community in an “increasingly fragmented” society.

UK marketing director Sally Cowdry says: “We need to keep the brand fresh, reflecting changing market conditions and customer priorities.” She says that O2‘s role in customer lives is changing and its focus must now be on “empowering and enabling them to better connect to people and things that matter”.

The “It’s your O2. See what you can do” positioning was introduced in May 2006.