Orange transforms Blyk into Shots mobile ad service

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Orange transforms Blyk into Shots mobile ad service

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 27 January, 2010

READ MORE: UK | Orange | Blyk | Advertising | MVNO

Orange UK has launched a mobile advertising service called Shots, building on its acquisition of ad-supported MVNO Blyk last July. The new offering indicates the rising importance of mobile ads in carrier strategies, as a key area where an operator can add value, and generate new revenues from corporations rather than margin-squeezing end users.

Blyk was originally set up by former Nokia executives as an MVNO which offered free calls to users who would accept targeted advertising. Although it gained about 200,000 users in its launch market, the UK, its real value was seen to be in its platform for targeting and delivering ads to reflect a customer's interests and location. This diverted Blyk down the road of managed services, and then attracted Orange, looking to catch up with other cellcos that were getting active in mobile ads, such as O2.

Orange has been testing the platform with its own brands, and with some third parties such as 4Music and Snickers. It will now launch the full service on February 1, under the new name of Orange Shots. It will initially be available to brands wanting to reach its Pay As You Go Monkey customer base, which offers free music and texts to customers when they top up, and has about 100,000 subscribers. It will then be extended across other target customer bases. Customers can opt out at any stage and their data will not be shared with third parties.

Orange Shots uses SMS and MMS, and like Blyk's service - and O2 UK's new inhouse MVNO, giffgaff - encourages customers to text back with opinions. After the test phase, Orange is claiming response rates of 21% to 39%, up a bit from Blyk's of 25%. Orange brings a far wider reach and more marketing muscle to the Blyk model. Its partner ad agency for the UK is Unanimis.