The campaign, developed by Ultra-asia, has been launched in Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong.
While O2 is a well-known brand in Europe, its awareness in Asia is comparatively low.
According to O2 regional head of devices and applications and Hong Kong country manager Christina Teo, the campaign aims to position O2 as a high quality brand that understands people's lifestyles and tastes. It is also a brand whose products are designed to empower and enhance busy executives' lives.
Titled 'Life support', the ads aim to attract the attention of upwardly mobile professionals aged 30 to 45.
Ultra-asia managing director Amy Ng said: "The strategy is to use the brand name, O2, as the main element to create the print ads. O2 is the chemical compound for oxygen. We created an image of a businessman scuba diving with an Xda II on his back, conveying the message that O2 products enable people to go into any environment or situation."
Ng noted that most of O2's competitors tended to use ads entirely focused on the product, or featuring a celebrity spokesperson, that is, not conceptually-based: "With 'Life support', we have set the benchmark for the O2 brand.
The next campaign will continue to position the brand as confident and of a high quality, but in a cool, understated manner. 'Life support' is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but to also create an impression."
Teo said the PDA phone's main rival is Sony Ericsson, while Xphone's primary competitor is Motorola.
"The market is highly competitive," said Teo. "It lacks room for new niche players to develop. O2 is a great example. Just over a year since we launched our products in Asia, we already have a passionate following."
She said the strategy to increase the market share was to design more programmes with online and offline media support in order to educate customers as well as the market.
Ultra-asia's Ng said: "I believe a brand campaign is inherently more powerful when its message and promise is delivered consistently across the region, rather than if it is not. The 'Life support' ad and marketing materials were developed for all Asia-Pacific markets; however, each country has the flexibility to change the copy in terms of language or references to product or network specifications, in order to adapt to their respective markets.
"We wanted to steer away from another product-driven ad and thus came up with a concept that builds O2's brand personality, while positioning it as one that is confident, stylish and, most importantly, that it is a high-quality brand that makes life-empowering products."
