Blyk continues its move from MVNO to operator partnership

Orange named as Blyk’s exclusive UK partner.

Blyk, the mobile engagement media announces Orange as its exclusive partner in the UK and confirms that it will move from its UK MVNO operation at the end of August.

This announcement follows on from Blyk’s recent news related to its partnership with Vodafone to bring the Blyk brand and media model to consumers and advertisers in the Netherlands.

“For Blyk, the MVNO enabled us to build an optimal user experience for young people while at the same time providing an engaged audience, accountability and overall media effectiveness for advertisers. The Blyk media model is now proven and we are accelerating Blyk’s growth through operator partnerships.” says Pekka Ala-Pietilä, Blyk co-founder and CEO. “We’ve had an excellent relationship with Orange UK in our capacity as an MVNO and our move to operator partnering naturally served to propel the evolution of this relationship. We see this as a major building block for Blyk’s international expansion and continued growth.”

Blyk members will continue to enjoy all the benefits of the service until 26th August, at which point Blyk’s MVNO operation ends in the UK. Since Blyk’s inception its members have freely aired their opinions and demonstrated their independence and individuality. Thus, as young people do, Blyk members will select the best alternative on the market to meet their individual needs. At the same time, Blyk and Orange are in the final stages of integrating Blyk’s media capabilities and expertise, allowing Orange to enhance their own media initiatives by launching across a variety of mobile propositions in the UK.

Blyk has proven that sending timely, interesting and relevant messages to young people from brands builds high levels of engagement and illicits high response and action rates. Going forward Orange will continue to offer brands this direct communication but on a far larger scale.

Marc Overton, VP of Wholesale, Business Development & Partnerships, Orange UK says, “Orange has enjoyed a close working relationship with Blyk since it first entered the market in 2007. It is a progressive, innovative, and exciting company and one which matches a proven capability with Orange’s ambition to grow its media business in order to offer a portfolio of opportunities for consumers and media houses alike. Integrating Blyk’s capabilities into our own will allow Orange customers access to great brand offers, benefits and promotions in a timely fashion which are specifically tailored and relevant to them.”

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Press contacts
For Blyk: Irène Nyberg, email: press@blyk.com, mob +44 7747 844 854 or visit http://about.blyk.com For Orange: 0870 373 1500 or email: Orangepr@golinharris.com or visit www.orange.co.uk/newsroom/

About Blyk
Blyk launched its innovative mobile service in the UK in September 2007 and quickly became known as a leader in mobile advertising, audience engagement, and for its ability to drive unprecedented response rates and return on investment for advertisers.

Blyk pioneered the use of interactive text and multi-media messaging as an advertising format, leveraging the most predominant behaviour of young people (sending and receiving messages on their phones) and enabling young people to communicate with brands in the same way they do with everyone else.
Blyk is currently partnering with mobile operators around the globe to expand the audience for its already successful engagement media model.
Blyk has offices in Helsinki, London and Amsterdam. For more information, please visit http://about.blyk.com/

About Orange
Orange is the key brand of the France Telecom Group, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators. With 123 million customers, the Orange brand now covers Internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the Group operates.

At the end of 2008, France Telecom had consolidated sales of 53.5 billion euros (12.7 billion euros for the first quarter of 2009) and at 31st March 2009, the Group had a customer base of almost 184 million customers in 32 countries. These include 123 million mobile customers worldwide and 13 million broadband Internet (ADSL) customers in Europe. Orange is the number three mobile operator and the number one provider of broadband Internet services in Europe and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies. In the UK, Orange provides high quality GSM coverage to 99% of the UK population and was ranked number 1 best network for 3G coverage by Ofcom in July 2009. At the end of March 2009, Orange had almost 17 million customers in the UK – 15.8 million active mobile customers and close to one million fixed broadband customers.

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange Personal Communications Services Limited. For more information: www.orange.com, www.francetelecom.com, www.orange-business.com For further information, call the Orange press office on 0870 373 1500 or email: Orangepr@golinharris.com or visit www.orange.co.uk/newsroom