London, 29th July, 2009: Orange today unveils Orange ‘Monkey’, the first Pay As You Go package for the UK market that offers free music to customers when they top up their mobile. Working together, Universal Music, Channel 4 and Orange have developed an innovative pay as you go package that gives customers free and easy access to hundreds of thousands of songs (plus free texts) streamed through any mobile handset and online at www.orange.co.uk/monkey from 30th July.
Aimed primarily at the youth market, Monkey has been created with 16-24 year olds in mind tapping into the elements of teen and ‘twenty somethings’ lifestyle choices. As well as free music, Monkey offers customers free texts, allows for playlists to be shared on social networks, and it delivers great offers from relevant brands direct to their mobile. The free music element of the package fulfils an untapped market that is looking for a low cost, easy access music service without users having to worry about download costs or the functionality of their handset. The dedicated Monkey website aims to create a community where customers can broadcast their individual playlists online and share them with their friends.
With Universal Music’s expertise, Orange has developed a streaming model which allows great interaction with mobile music. As well as giving Monkey customers access to its market-leading catalogue, Universal Music will provide exclusive music, pre-release tracks and other content to the Monkey website such as competitions, artist interviews and playlists – all of which will help to build the Monkey community.
As the most watched music channel in the UK, 4Music delivers targeted access to Monkey’s core demographic with over half of its adult viewers being aged 16 to 34 years. Using a combination of traditional advertising, integrated programming and market leading music editorial expertise, 4Music will promote the Monkey service from early September across the Channel 4 portfolio. Online, 4Music.com will promote the Monkey service and music offering, and the 4Music team will be the editorial voice of the official Monkey website which will carry news, artist features, playlists, exclusive content and competitions.
Tom Alexander, CEO of Orange UK said: “Unlike some music services which are either restricted to high-end more expensive handsets or have download costs, Monkey is for everyone. All you need to do is top up to get free music on any handset or online. Orange, Universal Music and 4Music will benefit from the success of Monkey - and each partner will contribute by doing what they do best. Universal Music has the best content and artists; 4Music has the best capability to reach the target audience and has the most respected editorial voice in this space; and at Orange we’ve got a great brand, great distribution and know how to develop and sell innovative mobile propositions.”
David Joseph, CEO of Universal Music UK, said: “We are excited to work with Orange on Monkey, an innovative service which meets the high expectations of today’s young music consumers. Unique partnerships like this are changing the shape of the music industry.”
Andy Duncan, CEO of Channel 4 said: "Aligning our brands in this way works well for Channel 4 and Orange. We have a very strong relationship with young audiences and so can deliver optimum exposure to this key audience for the new Monkey service. And Channel 4 gets to extend its offering into mobile, with an exciting and innovative business model which fills a gap in the market."
Monkey customers also get all the other benefits of being on Orange: 2 for 1 cinema tickets with Orange Wednesdays; a 1 in 3 chance to win great prizes with every top up; £1 towards a new phone with every £10 top up; a free £2.50 overdraft, and cheap calls to your best mates with Magic Numbers.
