Remember BT Cellnet? In hindsight, it was never much of a brand - the archaic name alone left an overwhelming impression of a fusty ex-monopoly playing catch-up with younger, faster competitors. In fact, by the late 1990s, BT Cellnet was already dead. Its executives realised that rebranding was the only sensible path left open to them and an apt name for breathing life into the brand was chosen - O2, the chemical symbol for unbound oxygen. Orange and Vodafone were already established in the market, and this left O2 in the immediate position of Challenger Brand. Getting traction for a new mobile phone network was not going to be easy, and the O2 launch team led by Will Harris (then VP, Marketing at O2) chose JCPR to strategise (and subsequently manage) the re-launch, attracted by their history of building iconic and everlasting brands such as PlayStation 2 and Wonderbra. JCPR and Harris hit it off immediately and built on the proven strategies of JCPR's previous campaigns to deliver what Accenture later described as "the most successful brand launch in the history of the telecoms sector". The campaign clearly worked. As Anthony Hilton, the Evening Standard's City Editor, later said (in March 2004), "The O2 resurgence is down to good PR." A bottom up marketing approach was deployed to give the campaign cultural resonance - and sales success - and ultimately earned JCPR an IPA Marketing Effectiveness Award in partnership with newly-founded ad agency, VCCP. Possibly JCPR's smartest move was their creation of what they dubbed the "Can Do Community"; at its heart was the strategy of making valuable connections between interesting people and the brand under their stewardship. These superusers did not require financial compensation - but by their very presence they connected O2 to its target communities even when they weren't deliberately talking it up. They also helped steer the brand into interesting - and newsworthy - places and partnerships. "The key was to bring on board a group of Influencers that would live and direct the brand with us, co-creating content that would have powerful resonance with other influential consumers, and eventually filter out into the consumer mainstream", comments Robert Phillips, JCPR Founding Partner. This was long before co-creation and user-created content became marketing buzzwords. "The creation of the Can Do Community had a profound, positive and permanent effect on the thinking of the O2 company and the brand. It was everything a PR idea should be - powerful, innovative, distinctive and ground-breaking - with a direct impact on both brand equity and sales," adds Harris. By targeting just the right people in various communities, from high-visibilty urbanites to (mainstream) subcultures like the Asian market, JCPR set up a series of diverse and meaningful brand dialogues. The O2 Asian Programme, which ran across 2003 and 2004, was another award winner. By engaging with second- and third-generation British Asians instead of trying to preach to them (a criticism leveled at many brands), JCPR ensured that O2 partnered with the right events and organisations. Musicians like Nitin Sawnhey and Transglobal Underground and the regional Asian Melas targeted the mass, while other partnerships were less mainstream: O2 Changing Voices was a series of short films examining the situations and the changes surrounding Asian communities in Britain today, while O2 Changing Faces focused on an interactive exhibition which tracked the intersection of youth and Asian cultures over the last 30 years - and ran in London before touring and toured other parts of the country. Crucially, all the activity avoided the potential pitfall of seeming patronizing or tokenistic; too many products have tried to make themselves culturally relevant just by cultivating a lazy association with Bollywood, and paid the price soon enough. As a JCPR team member was quoted as saying in the Financial Times, "Don't niche Asians. Businesses should not feel the need to throw curry powder over their marketing". In the course of the Asian programme, JCPR brought O2 to over half a million people who attended the various chosen events. Given the relatively small amount spent on the campaign, the 68:1 return on investment represents a remarkable success, and a sound vindication of JCPR's use of cultural connections, community-based approaches, and innovative techniques in PR. O2's move into the music arena was handled in a similar way; the general youth market was courted both directly and through a series of events targeted at smaller, tighter communities. The partnership with Capital Radio's Party in the Park events was unquestionably effective, with the facility to send text messages to the giant screen being especially worthy of note, and fitting into a wider strategy which understood the importance of the music industry as a driver of popular taste. Partnerships with Wildfruit, QueerNation and Bump made advances to the gay community, while the urban scene was targeted through links with Basement Jaxx, Shystie and Andrew Weatherall; and, again, the Asian market was nurtured though relationships with Club Asian, Shaanti and EDB. These smaller events were well-chosen in that they received disproportionate amounts of coverage; the first third of the campaign alone generated over 100 articles with a total audience reach well over 30 million. At the time of the O2 launch, the FT's Meg Carter said: "Ultimately, through the Can Do Community, O2 hopes it can better align targeted niche activities with its mainstream brand communications. Each group within the youth sector - such as the urban market, the gay market, and garage - is made up of what O2 calls super-users. These people are most likely to be the heaviest users of O2, and the most likely to influence the mainstream. Other initiatives came from unexpected sources; Bob and Sally Dowler, parents of the murdered schoolgirl Milly, approached 02 and JCPR to seek partners for the widely celebrated "Teach Ur Mum 2 Txt" campaign - aimed at finding a better way (via text) for teenagers to stay in touch with their parents. Milly's Fund gave an opportunity to promote the genuine value of inter-generational communication and present O2's commitment to social responsibility. The Suzy Lampulgh Trust and BBC Talking Teenagers were both leading partners, ensuring that the social message went straight to the heart of the community. The first two days of coverage were valued at £2.1 million by Metrica, and the subsequent demand for material was so high that 500,000 extra educational booklets had to be printed. This was the beginning of an era of heightened regard for corporate social responsibility, so the social aspects of the campaign effectively tapped the Zeitgeist. Throw in JCPR's work to support O2's sponsorship of Arsenal and England Rugby (and the not incidental event of a victory parade for 750,000 England Rugby Fans in 2003) and, at the end of it all, O2 has become a totally visible and credible player in the crowded mobile telecommunications sector. So successful was JCPR's campaign that virtually nobody now connects the brand with its forebear, BT Cellnet, and even those who know of its heritage respect the O2 brand and its lasting resonance. "Nowadays," said Harris, "it's almost as though BT Cellnet never happened."