Orange earn the right to claim Wednesday

Orange is currently celebrating 5 years of Orange Wednesdays, and celebrate they should, as the campaign has been a success in so many ways. For those that don’t know, Orange Wednesdays is a service which allows UK Orange customers to get 2 for 1 cinema tickets.

Orange claims that the offer has been used over 14 million times, and it has made Wednesday go from being the least popular day outside the weekend to visit the cinema to the most popular. The campaign has clearly boosted the UK cinema industry, and is a great example of how brands can really do things that can benefit others.

So has Orange directly increased sales from the promotion i.e. have the benefits of the campaign been the primary reason why people have become or remained Orange customers. You would need to carry out some serious market research to obtain this data, and I would argue that would not be time well spent. I am sure there are people who have been directly influenced by the campaign in such a manner, but the real value comes more indirectly in the strengthening of the brand.

The campaign has worked particularly hard at associating the brand with the film industry (importantly backed up by other activity and award sponsorship). Orange can enjoy having the positive connotations of ‘film’ attached to their brand, they can now be associated with traits of the film industry such as originality, entertainment, and quality. This is not an easy association to make, as there is no obvious link with mobile and film to build upon. However, Orange saw how their brand could be involved and improve the cinema experience for its audience. Orange became a major part of the cinema experience, you went to the cinema on Orange Wednesday, you text from your Orange phone in the day to get your voucher code, then you made sure you brought your Orange phone to the cinema to claim your free ticket. Orange did have a potential barrier to brand association in that the mobile phone or a major brand was actually something that could ruin the film experience, people using mobiles in the cinema ruins the experience for those around them, and even worse a mobile brand such as Orange could try and push it’s way into film by encouraging promotion of it’s services within major films. However, Orange had this covered with their long running series of ads (see above) in which Orange mocked the idea of brands trying to get their way into films and also served as a reminder for people to turn off their phones before the film.

The key the success of the campaign was that Orange actually provided something useful for their customers and the industry it was trying to associate themselves with. Of course the usefulness of such a campaign rests on the customers ability to use the service. Success was found in a simple and technologically sound 2 for 1 concept and simple text and show system, if this process had not been so simple none of the fore mentioned success would have occurred. Orange have also had similar success in other campaigns, such as when they sponsored UK music festival Glastonbury they provided festival goers (not just Orange customers) with a virtual map that they could download to their phone. Another useful service that could be simply downloaded to the majority of mobile phones.

In the current recession the cinema is as popular as ever, so there is no reason why the camapign can’t live on for a while yet. Of course as our digital world changes the film industry, with people getting their content from the Interent, Orange will have to adpat their strategy. Maybe we’ll see buy one get one free film download or Orange could once again serve both the film industry and audience by sponsoring content so the industry gets paid and the user gets free content (see Could brands take on the pirate bay).

News Source: Mobile Marketing Magazine