O2: LOAD & GO

Credits & Description:

Type of entry: Product & Service
Category: Financial Products & Services
Advertiser: TELEFÓNICA O2 UK
Product/Service: O2 MONEY
Agency: ZENITHOPTIMEDIA INTERNATIONAL London, UNITED KINGDOM
Communications Planning Director: Hamid Habib (ZenithOptimedia)
Client Planning Director: Hannah Lury (ZenithOptimedia)
Strategic Partnership Manager: Danusia Michalik (ZenithOptimedia)
Client Planning Manager: Kay Tasker (ZenithOptimedia)
Branded Content Director: Neil Walker (ZenithOptimedia)
Results and Effectiveness:
Channel 4 quoted this as their most innovative and successful integrated campaign in the channel’s history partly partly due to how it managed strict UK broadcast regulations.
2 million teenagers saw the campaign on TV and 260,000 engaged online. Advertising cut through was staggeringly high at 80% (vs. 33% norm) and O2 accomplished its goal of getting teenagers interested in financial products!
50% said they were, or would consider, applying for a card. Word-of-mouth was tracked to over 1 million recommendations.
Most importantly, O2 smashed their target by 300%, making Load & Go the fastest growing card launch in the UK.
Creative Execution:
Hollyoaks gave us their scripts three months before filming which we used to create a bite-sized ‘show within a show’ for O2 that ran in every centre break for a month – a UK first!
Daily mini-episodes featured two characters who worked in the ‘Load & Go shop’, called Matt & Sam, who talked about the plot line viewers had just watched and referenced how they were using their Load & Go cards to purchase items related to the storyline.
These contextual TV adverts drove viewers online to the Load & Go zone within the Hollyoaks website which highlighted how to use the card to shop online through unique online content, such as 360° set views that hotlinked out to purchase points for set objects (eg. posters on characters’ bedroom walls) and in specially created videos that featured the actors talking to camera about how they spend online vs. their characters.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea:
In August 2009, O2 (Telefonica) entered the financial category with the launch of Load & Go, a prepay top-up card with VISA, which finally allowed UK teenagers the opportunity to spend online.
However, teenagers aren’t interested in financial products and O2 is a brand closer to Nike than it is to a bank. Teenagers are, however, interested in gaining their freedom so our campaign had to demonstrate how Load & Go unlocked the freedom to spend – but be entertaining enough to grab their attention and hit O2’s ambitious target (in a new category) of 10,000 new customers in the first month.
Hollyoaks is the UK’s most popular teen programme with 5.5m viewers (80% of 13-17 year-olds) and 2m online users. It is the only show in the top 20 UK that indexes over 100 (Index 150). It was the perfect partner to deliver scale (via TV) and engagement (via web).