ADWATCH: Orange supports customer initiative with 'academy' ad

'Professor' Dylan explains the mobile giant's scheme to help users make more of their phone.

A 13-year-old professor lecturing a fictional academy of phone trainers is the star of Orange's latest campaign, to show how customers can make more use of their mobile phones.

The execution enters this week's Adwatch at number eight, with recall of 49%. It is the brand's first consumer-focused campaign to be created by Mother, which won the £43m account last October, and marks a change from the network's previous dream-like visual images.

The 40-second execution, set in the 'Orange Training Academy', shows the 'professor', named Dylan, training Orange staff to explain various services, such as picture messaging and mobile e-mail, to customers.

The spot features a number of 'phone trainers', all wearing hats, sitting in a circle. Dylan explains: "If I get all students to wear hats, it helps to find the inner core of the phone and the inner being of the customer." He tells the trainers: "Say how you feel. The relationship between a phone and customer is a fragile one."

The trainer wearing the phone hat says: "Press my buttons and look at my face, you're going to know what's going on." The trainer wearing the customer hat replies: "That's not how it's worked in my experience."

Dylan explains: "I do it to show how the customer feels." The ad ends with the line 'Orange trainers are here to help you learn'.

In line with the ads, Orange has renamed 1800 sales executives at its 248 stores 'phone trainers', complete with a training programme and redesigned uniforms. The company says that they will demonstrate products, rather than provide a hard sell. The scheme is part of the firm's 'Inside Orange' strategy to open up the company and give it a more consumer-focused marketing strategy.

The dialogue contrasts heavily with the style of previous Orange campaigns, and the slogan 'The future's bright, the future's Orange' has been dropped.

"Branding in the sector had copied Orange and the category had become almost generic," says Orange marketing director Jeremy Dale. "Our advertising was originally distinctive but we wanted brand recognition and so needed to move our style on."

The 'training academy' advertising has attracted criticism from children's groups over Orange's casting of a young boy to front the campaign, because of the potential health risks of children using mobiles. However, no complaints have been received about this spot by the Independent Television Commission.

Media, through Media Planning Group, includes posters, press, radio, web and DM activity.

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