BT plugs YouView with new ad character

BT is one of the seven investors in the YouView consortium, which has developed an internet-connected set-top box, bringing catch-up and pay-TV functionality as an alternative to signing up to Virgin Media and Sky.

Like fellow investor TalkTalk, BT is hoping that offering YouView will tempt customers to sign up to its telephone and broadband service.

In the ad, Simon is paid an unexpected visit by his mother, played by TV and film actress Samantha Bond, and in a bid to avoid her questions about his personal life, he shows her the YouView service.

Having recently returned from holiday, she takes to YouView as a way to catch up with the soaps she has missed.

Bond has recently played Auntie Angela in the BBC comedy 'Outnumbered' and as Lady Rosamund Painswick in 'Downton Abbey'.

The ad, which was created by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, will be shown first tonight (2 January) during 'One Born Every Minute' on Channel 4.

The other investors in YouView are the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BT, TalkTalk and transmission provider Arqiva.

YouView was first advertised on TV in late September last year with a YouView-funded campaign featuring images of TV programmes being projected onto buildings with the strapline, "Extraordinary TV for everyone".

BT’s self-developed TV service, BT Vision, has attracted 750,000 subscribers since its launch in 2006, just 4% of the pay-TV market.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk