Rapp lands Virgin Media O2 customer marketing brief

Rapp has landed the combined Virgin Media O2 customer marketing account – one of the biggest marketing briefs in the UK – following a competitive pitch run by AAR.

The decision follows the appointment of VCCP to the advertising business in March and was triggered by the £31bn merger sealed in 2020, which brought together O2’s 34 million mobile network customers with Virgin’s 5.3 million broadband, pay-TV and mobile users.

Rapp has handled Virgin’s CRM account for over a decade. The O2 CRM brief, held by M&C – formerly Lida – was up for review in 2020 year but it was postponed due to Covid.

Virgin Media O2 customer marketing director Paul Stevenson said: “Both the Virgin Media and O2 brands have a rich history of delivering exciting, customer-centric campaigns, and now with Rapp in place we’re ready to take this to the next level as we enter a new chapter as Virgin Media O2, reimagining connectivity for our customers.

“We’d like to thank all of the agencies involved in the pitch process for their incredible efforts and energy.”

Rapp executive chair Chris Freeland said: “Winning this consolidated business with Virgin Media O2 is one of the proudest moments of my career.~

“We have such a huge depth of talent and capabilities at Rapp, which marries perfectly with the customer transformation ambitions of Virgin Media O2 and their formidable team.

“I’m thrilled that we will be developing meaningful customer engagement and growing Virgin Media O2’s customer base even further through their marketing programmes.”

The media business for Virgin Media O2 is being reviewed between the incumbents Havas Media, which handles O2 and Manning Gottlieb OMD, which runs Virgin Media.