Brazilian telecoms giant opens up Oi umbrella

Brazilian telecoms giant Telemar has merged its fixed-line, broadband and mobile services under the brand umbrella Oi – the name currently assigned to its mobile offering – with branding by Wolff Olins.

Launched last week, the decision to rebrand was taken following the mobile service’s huge success since its creation by Wolff Olins in 2002.

According to Wolff Olins account director, Sairah Ashman, ‘Telemar is like BT and Oi is like Orange, but Oi services most of Brazil. It is a different culture in Brazil so the context was different. It was a big challenge to bring two such different brands together while protecting the values of each of them.’

The Oi brand architecture is based on three customer segments – ‘extreme’, for those who are open to experiment, ‘mass’, for everyone and ‘business’, for professionals.

Each segment has its own ‘spirit, personality and tonality’, but is united and underpinned by one brand idea, ‘sem enrolacao’ – best translated as ‘cut the crap’.

Wolff Olins creative director Marina Willer says, ‘Putting the Telemar and Oi brands together is like joining a Volvo truck with a Smart car. The challenge was to make Oi credible for all audiences while protecting its original spirit and hardcore audience.’