Orange

Hard to remember now, but once upon a time everyone in this country hated mobile phones.

The handsets were bulky, ugly and eye wateringly expensive. The networks they depended on; tin-eared, devoid of any service attitude or customer care. Calls were rounded up and charged to the nearest minute, paying line rental afforded a user the chance to make calls and rack up huge bills. Contracts were two years long.

Against this backdrop, the efforts of a Bristol-based, Hong Kong-backed team were astounding for their ambition. They wanted to do nothing less than create the world’s first customer-centric mobile network, that left the two large incumbents in the shade. Even the name was preposterous. Orange.

Tasked with creating the advertising front end with which to launch the brand, The Future’s Bright, The Future’s Orange soon become as famous as the iconic imagery and minimalist design. Customers loved it, and the Orange brand regenerated the entire mobile category, creaming off the lion’s share of affluent customers in the process. The brand lives on in France, but the marketing model it pioneered was copied hundreds of times.