Orange UK: Ringing Up Xmas Tunes

Orange UK made a special Christmas campaign and was the first campaign for its Calling Tunes service since the service was launched in November 2005.

The campaign was launched during December, and offered the free Christmas Calling Tune to all of Orange UK users. Customers were sent either an SMS or an MMS promoting the offer, which could be adopted by either visiting the Christmas Grotto section on Orange World or by dialing a given number.

If you missed it (or you live elsewhere) here is the campaign's text:

Hi from Orange. Calling Tunes are snippets of music accompanying the usual ring-ring callers listen to while they wait for you to answer the phone. As it’s Christmas we’re giving away the Calling Tune ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ for FREE. Just go to the Christmas Grotto on Orange World or call 477 (10p/call) and type in the quick code 20550 Keep togetherness going. Terms at orange.co.uk/xmastune

And here is the given Calling Tune.

Orange UK saw amazing results which crowned this campaign to one of its best campaigns. This makes you think - how does it work?

The medium of SMS\ MMS encourages spontaneous decision making on behalf of the users; it takes them only a few seconds after reading an SMS\ MMS to decide whether to delete it or to act accordingly. Campaigns of this kind need to cope with the implosive decision making upon receiving the SMS\ MMS notification, so in order to raise the amount of joining users - the offer should be irresistible. You’d have to agree that receiving a free Calling Tune is definitely of such nature for most users. Also, to increase success the message needs to be tied to the basic need for instant gratification; in this campaign it was the Christmas spirit and the need to celebrate and belong.

And a final note about impulsive buying: impulse buying can also occur when potential users spots something related to a product that stirs a particular passion in them, such as favorite sports teams, music artists etc’, and there are great examples of this kind as well.