Orange calls Shots with mobile advertising plan

UK operator Orange revealed what it’s been up to with failed-MVNO-turned-managed-services-provider Blyk on Tuesday, marking the launch of Blyk’s first offering in its new guise.

Blyk closed the doors on its MVNO operation at the end of August 2009, having notched up some 200,000 end users. The firm re-launched itself as an advertising services provider and since September Orange has been testing the platform with its own content and brands including 4Music, Ubisoft, COI and Snickers.

Launching full commercial service on February 1, Orange Shots will initially be available to brands who want to interact with an audience of 100,000 customers from part of Orange’s Pay As You Go Monkey customer base, which offers free music and texts to customers when they top up.

The Orange Shots service works across SMS and MMS, and like Blyk’s original model, encourages customers to message back and give views and opinions. After testing, Orange is claiming response rates of between 21-39 per cent and said it will slowly roll out the Shots platform to the rest of its subscriber base. Unanimis UK is the partner advertising agency.

Orange assures its customers that they have the opportunity to opt out at any stage, and customer data will not be shared externally to third parties.

Blyk’s original model relied on revenues from advertising customers being used to subsidise voice and text usage for 16 – 24 year-old end users (or ‘members’ as Blyk prefers to describe them). But, although initial uptake was quicker than the firm had forecast, the service was not a commercial success.

While the firm’s advertising response rates remained high, at 25 per cent, it lacks the kind of reach that advertisers are used to buying through more established media. And the volume of free usage made available to end users through advertising subsidies was simply insufficient.