Orange teams with Blyk, plans more aggressive ad efforts

European mobile operator Orange announced it will partner with ad-funded MVNO Blyk to ramp up its ad-subsidized service ambitions--in tandem with the agreement, Blyk will terminate its own wireless services, although Orange will not inherit the company's 200,000 British subscribers. Orange said it will offer special tariffs to any of its 16 million U.K. customers who agree to accept targeted ads delivered via SMS and MMS--the operator's head of wholesale, business development and partnerships Marc Overton told Reuters that Blyk's expertise will help it more aggressively pursue mobile advertising initiatives without alienating subscribers. Customers will have some measure of choice over which ads they receive, he added: "This is a very much more targeted, intimate method," Overton said. "You're actually having a conversation with your customer." In addition, Orange will pursue a wider demographic than the youth-centric market that comprised the majority of Blyk's userbase.

Blyk co-founder and CEO Pekka Ala-Pietila told Reuters that working in partnership with operators will enable the firm to concentrate on its core competencies. "The aim with our partnership strategy is to roll it out faster in every single market, so that we can have even greater audiences by size and roll out in multiple countries," he said. Blyk last week announced a similar partnership with Vodafone's Netherlands unit, and is reportedly in talks with other operators in Europe and Asia. Former Nokia president Ala-Pietilä and Contra Group chairman and CEO Antti Öhrling launched Blyk in March 2007--described as a "pan-European free mobile operator," the MVNO offered subscribers free, ad-supported voice and text services, targeting the 16-to-24 demographic.

For more on the Orange/Blyk deal:
- read this Reuters article

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