Unilever's Walls Ice Cream in sponsorship deal with O2 for wi-fi hotspots

As temperatures have been rising and the crowds congregating in London, Unilever brand Wall's Ice Cream is sponsoring O2 Wifi Metro throughout the month of August.

Visitors and Londoners alike who are enjoying free O2 Wifi in some of the busiest parts of London are also seeing Unilever's first ever sponsorship of the landing pages.

Unilever has partnered with O2 Wifi and O2 Media to bring the Wall's Love Ice Cream campaign to the busiest streets of London. The collaboration sees iconic Wall's brands including Magnum and Cornetto owning all media placements on the wifi welcome pages on the streets of London.

The campaign combines two fast-emerging trends in digital media: location-based and contextual marketing, using them in tandem. The new concept in mobile messaging is called Thermal Targeted Proximity Messaging, which supports the wifi placement. The proximity messaging within Zone 1 in London is triggered by a temperature setting, sending out messages only when the sun is out and the weather reaches a certain temperature.

Iconic areas such as Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and Exhibition Road are amongst the seven squares and shopping streets benefiting from the free wifi deal between Westminster City Council and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and O2.

Claire Valoti, managing director of O2 Media said: "It is great to see a company such as Unilever and their brand Wall's Ice Cream exploring new ways of reaching their consumer. The fantastic thing about the partnership is that it integrates O2 Media and O2 Wifi to deliver something that consumers love - free wifi - but places a Wall's Ice Cream right in their path when the sun shines, creating amazing relevance.

"We have big plans for Thermal Messaging because of the increased accuracy in terms of delivering the right message to the right consumer and the ability to message a consumer based on the British weather, something we know many of the brands we work with are hugely interested in".

O2 Wifi's service in the centre of London was deployed in the summer of 2012. It enables millions of people living in or visiting the capital to enjoy fast, free, reliable wifi whilst out and about. O2 Wifi is free for everyone, regardless of network or broadband provider and, once registered, customers will be automatically connected each time they enter a coverage area.