Vodafone Italy (2003)Copied

Omnitel was founded in 1995 as Italy's first private mobile operator and joined the Vodafone Group in 2000. Its brand was then phased out in stages. In January 2001 it became Omnitel Vodafone, in June 2002 Vodafone Omnitel, and on 12 May 2003 the shareholders' meeting ratified the final step: from the next day, the operator would be called simply Vodafone Italia.

telefonino.net's editorial team reported that the change also covered the whole retail chain, to be called Vodafone One, while the Omnitel logo would survive in its existing form only in some customer communications, next to the Vodafone logo. The site noted that the most important services were already branded only Vodafone, with Vodafone Live! the obvious example, and that handsets already carried only the British group's red brand. Key4biz added that the change was already under way, with the shops renamed from Omni One to Vodafone One and the voice guide on Omnitel's services already presenting itself only as Vodafone.

La Repubblica framed it bluntly: Omnitel goodbye, eight years after its birth. A new Vodafone Live! advert would mark the switch from 13 May, the first spot made for Vodafone Italia by J. Walter Thompson.

telefonino.net explained the slow pace by the importance of the Omnitel brand in the market and its strong impact on users. That is the generous reading. The cynical one is that two years of double-barrelled names were a polite way of letting customers forget a brand that had been bought, not merged. Either way the end state is the British group's red brand and nothing local at all. As a business decision it is unarguable; as a piece of brand history it is a quiet erasure of the company that opened the Italian mobile market to competition.