tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/o2-13723/articlesO2 – The Conversation2015-11-02T13:19:25Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/500892015-11-02T13:19:25Z2015-11-02T13:19:25ZHow Dr Dre picked up the ball and ran with it despite Rugby World Cup’s tight marketing scrum<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100508/original/image-20151102-16514-sg4z0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C1020%2C686&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Heads you win.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/slnguyen/4294018523/in/photolist-7xrY78-b8nUfn-b8nTTT-aCR5e2-beXcNP-7vSQGY-b8nTv4-b8nTGF-7u5UHa-7vSQGW-7vSQH7-aCUWfG-8V2wad-8XGvv8-7xrXz2-7xrWYB-b8nUwP-wx2ipB-7xrWmH-aer1UZ-b8nU3k-b8nTCi-b8nTja-b8nTyD-b8nToz-b8nTYt-b8nTrX-aCR5mM-99n5Fz-9V3CAA-ctntXd-eeomAT-eewSHJ-aCUWn1-aucPju-aCUWpb-aDMsPA-98dqBS-o8bNZD-b2obit-bhbiGM-bVocxF-8jsvV3-aAFUuo-o9XFZD-nQrMYm-onNGVk-aMFgbX-94CL63-aMFjPi">Sean Nguyen</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The favourites New Zealand chalked up their second successive Rugby World Cup victory in a competition dominated by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-beautiful-south-how-australia-and-new-zealand-dominated-the-rugby-world-cup-49965">southern hemisphere</a> teams. But who were the winners among the global corporations seeking to stand out in the marketing scrum? The tournament sought to keep its doors closed to the kind of unofficial marketing that leaves official sponsors furious, but an American rapper may have rattled their cages.</p>
<p>The RWC is now firmly established as a top ten world sporting event that can boast a hike in <a href="http://www.novagraaf.com/en/news?newspath=/NewsItems/en/don-t-get-into-a-fight-with-the-rugby-world-cup-2015-organisers">sponsorship revenue of more than 50%)</a>. Huge leaps have been made to <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/09/24/italy-sees-largest-rugby-world-cup-interest-spike-outside-top-10-ranked-sides">give the sport global scale</a>.</p>
<p>You could see the practical impact of this as deep-pocketed sponsor Emirates airline’s brand appeared on match officials’ shirts, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-england-cant-lose-from-hosting-the-rugby-world-cup-47788">a first for the tournament</a>, and a move which illustrates a willingness to create new marketing assets. </p>
<h2>Swing lower</h2>
<p>However, despite the largely sold out stadia, the biggest crowds, and the narrowest winning margins (although still some 30 points), TV sponsors were still facing 25% advertising value losses <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/10/05/rugby-world-cup-brands-play-down-commercial-losses-england-s-lacklustre-exit">due to England’s early exit.</a></p>
<p>It wasn’t for want of trying. Official sponsor Land Rover, surely the ideal rugby vehicle, ran extensive grass roots game vignettes emphasising its rugged, real and authentic dimensions. As part of the pre-tournament hype, it even floated a bespoke Defender in an oval balloon down the river Thames. </p>
<p>Heineken’s £20m sponsorship propelled it to the top of the <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/09/22/heineken-tops-rwc2015-digital-engagement-non-sponsor-guinness-comes-second">competition’s digital engagement rankings</a>, closely followed in second place by non-sponsor and close competitor Guinness with its “made of more” campaign, with Land Rover taking fifth spot. Also in the top ten were non-official sponsors O2, using an evocative approach dubbed <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/10/05/rugby-world-cup-brands-play-down-commercial-losses-england-s-lacklustre-exit">“wear the rose - make them giants”</a> that claimed 5m acts of shirt wearing support. </p>
<p>The biggest surprise to most would have been a Dr Dre brand coup as it rode on the coat-tails of a genuine tournament hero with a campaign titled “the game starts here” and starring All Blacks captain Ritchie McCaw. The Beats headphone, speaker and music streaming business which Dr Dre founded is now owned by Apple, but the company <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jul/31/dr-dre-beats-olympic-brand-police">has form in ambush marketing</a>. It is an alluringly effective strategy for a youth-culture-focused brand no doubt. Using the highly recognisable Kiwi skipper allowed Beats to achieve a stand-out top ten ranking without signing up for an official sponsorship package.</p>
<h2>Giants felled</h2>
<p>England’s long-term telecoms sponsor, O2, got into that top 10 despite having to give up its Twickenham stadium sponsorship for the 44-day-long tournament. It did though <a href="http://news.o2.co.uk/?press-release=o2-gives-rugby-fans-chance-to-earn-one-of-50000-official-england-rugby-shirts">give away 50,000 O2-branded shirts</a>, adding to the 150,000 that are sold each year. You might even have some pity for them as that “wear the rose” campaign featuring oversized cartoons of celebrity players to tap into powerful emotional nationalism, came to a rather sudden halt as England crashed out embarassingly.</p>
<p>O2 might have foreswarn ambush marketing, but it wasn’t left entirely to chance. Bespoke anti-ambushing legislation wasn’t introduced but the RWC organising body England 2015 did pre-purchase the outdoor outlets <a href="http://www.udl.co.uk/docs/default-source/default-document-library/ambush-marketing.pdf?sfvrsn=2">around their venues</a>, effectively establishing a 500m advertising exclusion zone. </p>
<p>The RWC also relied on trade mark protection, rather than what some have criticised as the draconian legislative measures <a href="http://www.onechoix.com/ambush-marketing-what-it-means-for-the-2015-rugby-world-cup-and-euro-2020">used by the Olympic movement</a> at London and for next year in Rio, and in so doing avoiding negative coverage and legal costs. Some hold the view that tighter sponsor rights protection actually makes it more likely that mega sports events will be ambushed; think of the notorious antics of <a href="https://theconversation.com/models-messi-and-wacky-races-the-art-of-ambush-marketing-22622">Paddy Power, Bavaria Beer and Pepsi</a>. Seven out of the ten most shared World Cup adverts were unofficial at FIFA’s 2014 premier football event.</p>
<h2>Bounced out</h2>
<p>And so the main sponsors kept the ambushes at bay, but maybe didn’t eradicate them completely. I noticed hostess teams outside Twickenham handing out megaphones featuring branding from power company SSE, which were confiscated by the stadium security. SSE was a sponsor of UK commercial broadcaster ITV’s coverage of the World Cup, but it was not an official sponsor per se.</p>
<p>Guinness, sponsor of all four home nation teams and yet ousted from the stadium experience by Henieken, sought to harness its credentials with rugby supporters directly at pubs and bars. It tried to get 500,000 people to try Guinness with an omni-channel roadblock media buying strategy aimed at hitting every screen and giving away 10,000 point of sales kits to landlords and owners.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Samsung put itself in the background in a campaign that leant on comedy for impact.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Another non-sponsor, Samsung, grabbed attention with its school of rugby campaign featuring comedian Jack Whitehall and former England captains Martin Johnson and Laurence Dallaglio. Their humorous content strategy heavily pared back on the Korean tech brand’s visibility. Blink and you might have missed it. </p>
<h2>Sponsorship form</h2>
<p>Perhaps, after all, the biggest surprise was on the field as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/sep/19/south-africa-japan-rugby-world-cup-2015-match-report">Japan beat South Africa</a>. Very modest evidence of England 2015 ambush ads probably signals a win for RWC management’s effort to protect exclusive sponsorship rights. Consumers don’t differentiate of course, and in that halo of confusion there was some success in related, but not infringing, marketing from Guinness, Samsung, and O2.</p>
<p>The thing is, they all have serious, long standing pedigrees as official sports sponsors. And in truth the RWC probably won’t be too bothered that some potential sponsors for the game stole a little of their thunder this time around. Bearing that in mind, it was perhaps only Beats by Dr Dre that ruffled the tournament’s carefully orchestrated protectionist feathers. So who will step up to take on the lawyers and stadium bouncers at next year’s Brazilian Olympics?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50089/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Justin O'Brien does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The attempt to hand-off unofficial advertising during the RWC failed.Professor Justin O'Brien, MBA Programme Director, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/448572015-08-14T11:17:56Z2015-08-14T11:17:56ZHow A R Rahman brought Bollywood soundtracks to the Western world<p>With record sales of more than <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/22/ar.rahman/">200 million</a> albums worldwide, A R Rahman has composed the soundtracks for over 100 Indian films and is credited with more or less single-handedly revolutionising Indian film music. </p>
<p>On August 15 Rahman will be performing a one-off “Greatest Hits” <a href="http://www.theo2.co.uk/events/detail/ar-rahman">show</a> at The O2 arena in London. He has brought Bollywood music to the Western world, with a style that is both new and familiar at the same time.</p>
<p>The son of a film music composer and conductor in the Tamil and Malayalan film music industries, Allah-Rakha Rahman got his big break as a music director doing the songs and background score for the Tamil film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105271/">Roja</a>. In India, film music reigns supreme, and Rahman’s soundtrack took the country by storm. </p>
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<h2>Bollywood on tour</h2>
<p>India has produced many giants of film music. But the key difference with Rahman, compared to earlier star music directors such as Naushad, Shankar-Jaikishen, R D Burman or Ilaiyaraaja, is the level of international acclaim he has gained. It is Rahman’s conquering of the Western world that makes him so remarkable.</p>
<p>By the 1950s, Indian cinematic music had a dominant influence from the Malay world to Greece, Russia, and the Middle East. In the West, however, Hollywood held sway, and Indian cinema, with its melodrama and song and dance interludes, was typically seen simply as bad. </p>
<p>The new sounds and style Rahman created changed the image of Indian film music in the West. His albums broke through into Western charts in the <a href="http://www.theantdaily.com/Business-Targeted/The-dulcet-tones-of-AR-Rahman">late 1990s</a> and he has since engaged in a range of high profile collaborations in the West. </p>
<p>His most famous work of late has been his soundtrack for Danny Boyle’s 2009 film <a href="http://variety.com/2014/film/features/a-r-rahman-slumdog-millionaire-1201335817/">Slumdog Millionaire</a>, which added two Oscars, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe Award and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8490528.stm">two Grammy Awards</a> to his already dizzying array of awards back home in India. As an Indian music star in the West, he has only been rivalled by the likes of <a href="http://www.ravishankar.org">Ravi Shankar</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">AR Rahman’s ‘Jai Ho’ from the 2009 film Slumdog Millionaire.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>New fusions</h2>
<p>Rahman’s acclaim is largely down to his use of fusion. East-West fusion is hardly new in Indian film music – by the 1950s, film songs sported extraordinary mixtures of Indian classical and folk music elements, large Western or Hollywood style orchestras with added Indian instruments, and global pop styles from the West and Latin America. Yet Rahman’s fusion marks a distinct break with earlier film music.</p>
<p>He is particularly known for his use of lush string sounds, often married with computer-generated bass. Overall, his timbres are more mellifluous and soft compared to the older film music, where treble frequencies dominated. New recording technologies have allowed Rahman to create a layered and expansive soundscape, contrasting with earlier film music where the orchestras were recorded in unison or near unison, the sound more of a block.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91766/original/image-20150813-21393-1k5cq3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91766/original/image-20150813-21393-1k5cq3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91766/original/image-20150813-21393-1k5cq3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91766/original/image-20150813-21393-1k5cq3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91766/original/image-20150813-21393-1k5cq3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91766/original/image-20150813-21393-1k5cq3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91766/original/image-20150813-21393-1k5cq3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A R Rahman recording with fellow artist Orianthi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orianthi#/media/File:A.R.Rahman_with_Orianthi_during_the_recording_of_Sadda_Haq.jpg">Sreejithk2000</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>In older film music, Indian and western instruments and styles were orchestrated into a whole, a close amalgamation. The violins, for example, hardly sounded like those in a Western orchestra, or the sitars like those in actual Indian classical music. This is part of the reason why the older film songs were seen in negative terms by Western critics as kitsch. But in Rahman’s music, the characteristic style and sound of diverse instruments and genres is distinctly heard, and often showcased.</p>
<p>In the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxqB1xUX36s">Hai Rama</a> from the film Rangeela (1995), for example, he opens and ends the song with the sound of the tambura, the drone instrument used to accompany Indian classical music. The song also incorporates South Indian and other percussion, strings, bass, and a virtuosic flute solo that manages to be Indian classical, beat box and slightly jazzy all at once. </p>
<p>In other songs Rahman uses Sufi singing, or the harmonium (played as in North Indian classical or light classical music), or background chants in regional Indian languages, and an assortment of other Indian styles and instruments. His music appeals to the “world music” and “world beat” sensibility that is growing in popularity in the West.</p>
<p>At the same time, Rahman incorporates a solid basis of mainstream Western pop, rock and jazz styles (even just through a prominent bass groove). He uses a range of singers and vocal timbres, avoiding the idealised, high-pitched female vocal sound. For these reasons, Rahman’s <a href="http://www.arrahman.com/albumbycategory.aspx?id=8">music</a> appeals to western ears more than older film music, and also to the upper end of Indian middle class society. </p>
<p>Earlier film music has been seen as the epitome of sophistication, modernity and innovation in India and much of the non-Western world. But Rahman is the first composer who has managed to make this music appeal on a global scale that includes the west. As such, his music is iconic of the economically booming and increasingly powerful India.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44857/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Morcom has received funding from the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust</span></em></p>Rahman’s performance at London’s O2 show how popular Indian cinematic music is growing in the West.Anna Morcom, Reader in Ethnomusicology, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/346842014-11-26T08:48:10Z2014-11-26T08:48:10ZTelefonica calling: why BT’s return to mobile is inevitable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65488/original/image-20141125-4258-o74ju9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Return to prominence.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dr1066/6006440878">David Hastings</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30178199">BT is in talks to buy either the O2 or EE</a> mobile phone operators comes as no surprise. The UK telecoms market is one of the most competitive and regulated in the world and with <a href="http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/cmr14/UK_5.pdf">traditional revenue streams declining</a>; companies are seeking new ways to survive. It therefore makes sense that shareholders in Telefonica, the Spanish telecommunications company, <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/24/uk-telefonica-m-a-bt-idUKKCN0J80S320141124">approached BT</a> about buying their British businesses. </p>
<h2>The ‘quadruple play’</h2>
<p>One recent trend in the telecommunications industry is to move into “quadruple play” – offering landline telephone, broadband, mobile and television services as a bundled package to customers. We have already seen Virgin Media, Talk Talk and EE adopt this strategy and it looks as though Vodafone is about to launch a <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bea908dc-6977-11e4-9f65-00144feabdc0.html">broadband TV service next year</a>. So where does this leave BT?</p>
<p>BT have a well established landline telephone and broadband portfolio, added to which is their BT Sport television service. Despite being a pioneer of the mobile phone in the UK, BT gave up its mobile business in 2005 and now has no footprint in that marketplace. A re-entry into mobile is therefore an essential and logical step if it wishes to follow the trend. A point recognised by the <a href="http://www.cityam.com/1416825647/bt-confirms-it-wants-buy-o2-back-telefonica">immediate jump of 3.6% in BT’s share price</a> when the news of talks first broke. The question is, how best to do it?</p>
<p>Despite bidding and being awarded a licence to provide 4G mobile services, BT have so far done nothing with it, and building a mobile network from scratch makes no sense. Buying an existing operator is therefore the only real option open to them. And here is where the 4G market is so important, because the increased bandwidth offered by that technology has seen a large growth in the consumption of mobile video thereby making it an ideal new delivery channel for a company that has invested heavily in its own sports channel. </p>
<h2>O2 vs EE</h2>
<p>Today O2 is the UK’s second largest mobile provider with 25% of the market share – <a href="https://gsmaintelligence.com/analysis/2012/08/uk-fires-4g-starting-gun/348/">behind EE at 40% and above Vodafone at 22%</a>. However, O2 has tended to pour scorn on its rivals’ move towards the quad play market and stayed focused on its mobile business. This makes O2 an attractive proposition for BT. Given O2’s focus on the mobile sector, there is little overlap with BT’s existing portfolio of services. </p>
<p>More importantly, in respect of 4G, the spectrum which O2 and BT have won <a href="http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/spectrum/spectrum-awards/awards-in-progress/notices/4g-final-results.pdf">are complementary</a>, providing both low and high frequency coverage. And the deal makes sense because O2’s owner, Telefonica, has been battling its own debt mountain in recent years, so the sale of O2 could bring useful income and allow it to invest in potentially more lucrative global markets.</p>
<h2>The better fit</h2>
<p>The alternative for BT would be to purchase EE, which is jointly owned by France Telecom and Deutsche Telecom. There is already a commercial tie-up between these two because earlier in the year, EE won a contract from Vodafone to provide BT’s 80,000 staff with mobile phones <a href="http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/workspace/bt-mobile-ee-vodafone-mvno-129246">under a Mobile Virtual Network Operator agreement</a>. </p>
<p>The fit between BT and EE seems less attractive, however, than O2, despite the cost of the deal being similar (around £10 billion). On one hand, combining a quad play and triple play company would necessitate a restructuring and consolidation of their landline telephone, broadband and television portfolios. And, in addition, their respective 4G spectrum allocations overlap which would probably require frequencies to be released back to Ofcom.</p>
<p>Buying O2 would therefore seem like the more logical choice of the two. If this comes to pass then it will be interesting to see if BT chooses to retain the O2 brand which is established throughout Europe and not just the UK. Whatever happens, BT’s move into mobile is inevitable and whether it buys O2 or EE, this could signal the beginning of the end for foreign ownership of the UK mobile industry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34684/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nigel Linge has received funding from the UK Research Councils.</span></em></p>The news that BT is in talks to buy either the O2 or EE mobile phone operators comes as no surprise. The UK telecoms market is one of the most competitive and regulated in the world and with traditional…Nigel Linge, Professor, Computer Networking and Telecommunications, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.