Broadband and mobile provider O2 UK will launch a new £5m 'Niggles and Narks' TV, press and online advertising campaign on Friday 21st May. It aims to promote the operators new Home Phone and fast broadband internet bundles by simultaneously attacking rivals for their "mis-leading" cost, download speed and quality claims.


O2 hopes the campaign will help to boost their share of the UK broadband market, especially after recent results highlighted a moderate slowdown in uptake (here). The adverts will feature a bunch of weird looking creatures and definitions to explain them. Full details of their new Home Phone bundles can be found HERE.



The company states that its strategy is primarily to question the legitimacy of claims by rival suppliers on the broadband speed they deliver to homes, though O2 freely admits to having some of their "own broadband niggles"; this is most often seen on the BT based Access package.

O2 claims they will "stop using ... mis-leading terms" and "hope other ISP’s will do the same". Specific reference is made to the use of "up to" when advertising broadband service speeds, though it is not clear how they intend to tackle this. In addition O2 says it will "engage in two way conversations with our customers" [ED: Radical stuff :cool: ].

Jokes aside. The 2010 uSwitch broadband customer satisfaction report rated O2 the overall winner after it came top in 10 out of 11 categories, with 92% of its customers being satisfied (here). Likewise they also took 1st place in a recent J.D. Power and Associates 2010 ISP Customer Satisfaction survey (here). In fact they've won lots of awards over the past few years.