If you are looking for information on the Bright Stuff service, visit www.orange.co.uk/brightstuff.
Having worked at an operator for 8 years before joining Blyk in 2007, I am all too sensitive to their perennial concerns about protecting customers from anything which might trigger dissatisfaction. So I have been very sympathetic to the diligent and exacting evaluation we have been constantly under since launching our first two ad funded media propositions on Orange here in the UK.
In 2009 we launched Monkey Messages, which is an ad funded media proposition fully integrated into the Monkey PAYG tariff. This launch passed its tests and earlier in 2010 we moved on to launch a more strategic proposition called Bright Stuff.
Bright Stuff is a cross-tariff service, which means its scale potential is unlimited by particular tariff performance. In time Bright Stuff can develop into a huge audience, richly segmented, offering incredible value to the widest range of advertisers.
We have just been given some more feedback by Orange on the performance of Bright Stuff after a particularly significant evaluation process concluded recently.
The findings are outstanding in our eyes. Stats like 35% of the users state that Bright Stuff has improved their opinion of Orange (while 64% stated their opinion remained the same, giving fully 98% whose opinion has improved or remained the same).
Strong evidence was found that Bright Stuff users rate the advantage of being on Orange higher than non-Bright Stuff users. And similarly, the same higher rating amongst Bright Stuff users was found for the overall quality of everything Orange provides them.
At the start of the evaluations conducted by Orange, the central questions were about the impact of the ad funded service on costs to serve – propensity to call Customer Services and the like. No measurable impact has been found.
Whilst these are pretty key questions – ensuring customer profitability is not degraded – the results we’re now seeing show us the real scale of the opportunity that operators have.
In summary, our interpretation of the results is that the Bright Stuff media proposition is such a powerful channel, providing users with such a rich stream of messaging which is 100% dedicated to fostering engagement and satisfaction, that it has the power to alter users’ fundamental perceptions of the core network brand… for the better.
It moves us on from the original proof point of protecting operators’ subscriber investments, to a more progressive, partnership-oriented proof point: enhancing our partners’ subscriber investments.
2011 is going to be a very exciting year indeed.
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Gavin is responsible for maximising the engagement and satisfaction of users of the Blyk media service in the UK. Read more about Gavin at Blyk.com
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I have just been harrassed by messages from BrightStuff, unsolicited, incomprehensible, unopenable, bad marketing. The scheme is so successful that if you google bright stuff, the first link coming up is from forums explaining how to opt out of this unsolicited, intrusive and abnoxious text bombardment.
Hi. I’m very sorry to hear of your experience on Bright Stuff. It sounds like you know how to opt-out but if you need help to do this, please drop me a line at gavin at blyk.com. We know that some members are not able to open MMS messages to watch the video clips or see the pictures, and we are working with Orange to provide more help to these users.
Thanks for your comment.
Hi. I too am being bombarded with these BrightStuff messages. What on earth are they supposed to be? The first one I thought was spam, it seemed to say absolutely nothing other than ‘BrightStuff exists’. The next few were in Japanese so I could not read them & now I seem to get identical messages in 2s or 3s about 2 minutes apart – each repeatedly telling me that BrightStuff is free with a link that goes to a web page that tells me that BrightStuff is free.
Hi. Thanks for getting in touch. It sounds as if your messages are being corrupted somehow which is not something we have experienced to date. In addition we will investigate why you are receiving repeat messages. Please get in touch with me at gavin at blyk dot com and I can then check your number and handset in our logs to rectify the issue. Thanks.
Who are these people that said bright stuff improved there opinion of orange? I’m an orange customer and I wasn’t asked how I felt about them. They are pure spam. only 1% said there opinion of orange is worse now? I don’t believe you. You also know they are spam but you are making money out of it which is fair enough, but just don’t start saying people like to be spammed (or try to claim the messages are not spam).
Hi Dave, Orange carried out this research independently from Blyk but I know they spoke to thousands of customers in the process. All aspects of the Bright Stuff service were covered from the big questions like impact of the service on opinion of Orange, through to what type of messages are the most and least popular, and even very specific questions such as recall of particular messages.
The results were very positive, but it did highlight areas for us to develop in the future. Bright Stuff users told us that they found 60% of messages personally relevant, and we know from user feedback that this isn’t high enough. For some members the score will be much lower of course. So, we are developing the service to increase the personalisation of messages and will monitor user feedback to check that we have improved on this point.
I don’t believe Bright Stuff is spam. Spam is just a broadcast of untargeted advertising to an unknown audience. Bright Stuff attempts to deliver a rich, media experience by targeting content, community, service education and advertising messages. But successful delivery of a messaging-based media service to large audiences is difficult and that is why we celebrated the research findings so proudly. However we do understand not everyone is universally satisfied with the service. I’m very hopeful that the developments I mentioned above are going to provide all members with an improved user experience which will drive appreciation and satisfaction of the Bright Stuff service.
I’m available via email (gavin at blyk dot com) if you’d like to talk to me further.
Thanks for getting in touch.
I just opted out from these annoying messages, they were pointless, unnecessary and irrelevant.
I honestly don’t believe oranges statistic on this, as it looks like the majority of people consider advertising of this nature spam…
text messages like:
* Eat junk food and lose weight,
* insider look at Britian’s most wanted hip-hop act,
* Travelers guide to feburary in Brighton
* Ford unveil the new electric-powered Focus
oh.. and about 6 messages saying:
* to be filled
Bright Stuff is nothing more than a cheap below-the-belt marketing ploy.
NOTHING BUT SPAM
Hi Jase, thanks for your comments. My post has generated a lot of discussion about the service which shows us how critical it is to deliver a great media experience on the mobile channel. There’s not much space between relevant and ‘pointless’ – and that is a particular challenge for mobile messaging.
As I mentioned in the response above this one, we will shortly be introducing much stronger personalisation to the service to increase the relevancy of the messages. The aim is and has always been for users to engage with the content that’s relevant to them – such as the messages you refer to. Personalisation is a key tool in this, but so is design, copy and the use of rich media such as pictures, video, and wap sites to maximise the appeal and interest of the messages (also touched upon in a previous comment I made is the work we’re doing to help as many users as possible be able to fully open and view our rich media messages).
A key aspect of Bright Stuff that differentiates it from spam is the fact that it is consent based – every member is sent help on opting-out, not just on joining but at regular intervals thereafter. The goal is to develop an engaged group of Orange customers who we can deliver an interesting and relevant service to and those who don’t find it useful or entertaining are able to opt-out easily.
I would say that Bright Stuff is quite the opposite of being ‘below the belt’. A lot of effort is made to maximise users’ awareness and understanding of the service. As above, opting-out is explicitly explained to all users repeatedly. Also, we run an induction programme for all users when joining, and deliver ongoing education campaigns that continually help users get the most from the service. These are designed to explain the service, the shortcodes it uses (so all our messages are immediately identifiable), that receiving and replying to our messages are free, how to reply and use the wap links and so on. On top of that, the service is heavily branded and has a clear identity.
I believe, as the research showed us, that we have many elements working well but its clear that there is little margin for safety when it comes to users’ mobile inboxes. The stronger personalisation we’ll be using soon should help improve relevancy which is so critical to user satisfaction and success.
Please get in touch with me (via gavin at blyk dot com) if you’d like to talk to me further.
Thanks for for your feedback.
Hi Gavin
How is this different o O2 More – my husband mentioned about their service and was not particularly dissatisfied. I am thinking o d changing my PAYG services to O2 or Orange and I am fine to receive offers but from the comments above it seems that O2 has mastered this while orange is still struggling especially with partnering with Blyk who couldn’t make it commercially successful?
Hi truestar,
Thanks for your response. Bright Stuff is quite different from O2′s service. Bright Stuff is a media service, offering members news, content and exclusive offers, and includes promotions and offers from brands as part of that media experience. Bright Stuff messages are interactive, offering a conversational experience and allowing members to reply directly to messages as part of a dialogue. Over time, members’ interests are profiled and the service seeks to send members more of the content they are interested in.
I would say network choice is governed by many factors including coverage, family calling plans, handset selection and so on. The fact that value added services like Bright Stuff are coming into the equation is a very positive thing though.
Good luck with your choice.
Thanks for automatically signing up people for this garbage. Typical intrusive marketing spam. Hope the BBB shut you down.
Hi Parks
Thanks for your response. The key aspect of Bright Stuff that differentiates it from spam is the fact that it is consent based – every member is sent help on opting-out, not just on joining but at regular intervals thereafter. The goal is to develop an engaged group of Orange customers who we can deliver an interesting and relevant service to and those who don’t find it useful or entertaining are able to opt-out easily.
Please get in touch with me (via gavin at blyk dot com) if you’d like to talk to me further.
Thanks for for your feedback.
I have just been sent a text from Orange telling me I’ve been opted in to receive Bright Stuff marketing messages. I fail to see how that is ‘consent based’. I haven’t given permission for Orange to share personal information with advertisers and I believe this is a breach of the Data Protection Act.
I will not be staying with Orange when my contract expires.
I have just received a text fromm Bright Stuff. I had already verbally opted out(through customer Services at Orange) and also texted STOP to 200000 previously. This text asked me whether I wanted to take part in a challenge – reply Y/N. I replied N and 3 hours later got another text asking me to choose my team! WTF? I never asked to be in this puerile scheme and don’t want to be! How the hell do you get out? I have, again, at personal expense phoned 450 to ‘opt out’ but I don’t suppose that will have any effect at all.
Derek – as part of the opt-in message you wil have received instructions on how to opt-out. Please get in touch with me at the address below if you are having difficulties with this and I will help.
Phil – I am not sure what happened to the message flow you received, it doesn’t sound as it was designed. Also I’m sorry to hear of the opt-out issue. Please email me at the address below and I will ensure you are opted-out from the service.
Thanks,
Gavin (gavin at blyk dot com).
I have never read so much rubbish as in your original article – how do you sleep at night writing such bull****. Google ‘BrightStuff’ and you get long lists of links to forums and blogs with people exasperated by trying to get out of this SPAM scam – there is your customer survey. It is outrageous. I opted out when it first started but it just starts up again a short while later. Orange are now going to lose another customer – me.
David – opted-out customers are not meant to be re-invited to the service, I will investigate this. We try to ensure all customers know how to opt-out freely from the first message onwards.
I’m with your previous commenter. My wife has at last Googled ‘How to Stop Bright Stuff’ and I can return to normal life and not have her shouting abuse at Orange every time a new unsolicited text arrives. Having been an academic myself, I know just how wide of the mark market research can be.