O2 Launches £5m ‘Surprises’ Campaign with Buongiorno

In a bid to retain UK customers in the pre-pay market – something notoriously difficult to do – O2 have launched their ‘Surprises’ campaign this week.  Customers topping up are given a code which guarantees a prize when entered at the campaign’s online ‘hook a duck’ fairground-game themed site – prizes range from free texts messages to TVs, laptops and even race day and spa experiences.

Backed by a £5.5m promotional spend on television, print and online media, O2 are hoping to make their 11.8m pre-pay subscribers feel special… and it wouldn’t hurt if customers of other networks noticed they weren’t getting prizes for topping up either.

…and whilst I’m looking forward to seeing the water-filled bus-stop panels with real rubber ducks, intended to ‘quack’ as people pass (we make our own fun ’round here), one of the most interesting aspects of this campaign is that it’s being powered by Italian-firm Buongiorno‘s web system – a company we made contact with recently after our trip to Rome (preview here, watch out for the full videos soon). We’ve fired them some questions over and will be publishing an introduction to this Italian power-house behind mobile entertainment projects in 53 countries and 100 network operators.

Weird O2 XDA behaviour?

A Friday puzzler for you… Can any of the big brains that read Mobile Industry Review offer any help to a friend who seeing some weird behavior on his Windows Mobile device?

A whole load of emails just ‘leaked’ from my phone to an SMS recipient,  impossible surely?! They were deleted emails (the full content)…  my deleted emails are set to auto-empty normally. The handset is an O2 XDA Orbit 1.

[For those not familiar with the XDA, it's a re-badged HTC Artemis (HTC P3300) also marketed by T-Mobile as the MDA Compact III.]

Apart from ‘never ever touch Windows Mobile with a barge poll’, can anyone offer any help?  Is this (could it be) a known bug?

I’m going to politely ignore the ‘human error’ option for the moment as this chap knows his tech…

O2 say sorry, but you still (probably) can’t have an iPhone 3G

Just had a text from O2 with a link to information on iPhone 3G availability and an apology (at the bottom) over the launch shambles (of sorts)…. Here’s the key bits that confirm some of the other reports we’ve seen about stock:

• O2 and Carphone Warehouse (CPW) stores will have limited numbers of iPhone 3G this Friday 11 July.

• On average, we will only have a few dozen iPhone 3Gs per store (some stores more, some stores less, dependant upon store size so we expect to sell out quickly). Sales of iPhone 3G will be limited to one per customer and two for business customers.

• Some O2 stores will open at 8.02am on Friday, others a bit later.

• If you do go into an O2 store you will need 2 forms of identification, a valid credit or debit card and proof of address. If you are new to O2 you will also need to pass a credit check if you sign up for an iPhone 3G contract. The average sales transaction processing time will be 20 minutes.

• Apple will be selling iPhone 3Gs in their stores, but please note that existing O2 customers can only upgrade in an O2 or CPW store.

• We are working closely with Apple to get additional iPhone 3Gs. These will be coming in on a weekly basis. We’ll keep you posted on specific details by updating this web page regularly.

• We are currently out of stock of iPhone 3Gs via our on-line store, we’ll update through www.o2.co.uk when more information becomes available.

• If you have an existing iPhone you can still enjoy many of the new features by upgrading your software to version 2.0 from 11 July through iTunes.

• We are sorry that we can’t meet all demand as quickly as we’d like but we’re sure that when you get your new iPhone 3G you’ll agree it’s been worth the wait.

Interestingly, the text came through on my Three handset – the number I provided as the contact number on my problematic upgrade attempt… I wonder if that means my order was captured? As it says on the O2 page if I haven’t heard by 6pm tonight I’ll know.