Optus moves on: new plans, new logo, and a walking lemon named Ollie

The familiar “yes” logo that accompanied Optus is changing shape, and the country’s second biggest telco is even ditching the animals, too, as Optus launches new plans under a new identity that aims to have just a little bit of fun.

It’s been a long time coming, but those animals — both talking and squealing — won’t be sitting on your TV anymore. Optus has packed them ark, thrown them in an ark, and moved them to a new place.

From here on in, the new Optus is all about a walking, slightly talking smiling lemon showing you the power of the Optus 3 and 4G networks.

“This is not about a new logo,” said Nathan Rosenberg, Head of Brand at Optus in Australia. “This is about a new way of doing business.”

That new way of business is all about a commitment to the customer that Optus will be better, that it will treat the customer better with plans that aren’t hard to understand, that make sense, and generally make the customer feel appreciated.

“We’re bringing ‘yes’ back to the core of what we do,” added Rosenberg. “At the very heart of what we do, we have to be better than we’ve been.”

To make that change, Optus will be launching its new cuter and comfier look, with a more comical “yes” in a speech bubble, custom typeface, and a walking lemon who doesn’t do a lot of talking, but looks nice. This little creature is nicknamed Ollie, though that name is likely to change as Optus will be calling on its customers to name the little yellow upside-down walking speech bubble, who will also be appearing in ads for the mobile provider.

“We’ve truly soul searched and tried to understand what customers want us to be as a brand,” said Rosenberg. “In the end, this journey of the brand transformation isn’t so much about the new logo; it’s about the entire brand experiences our customers have with us.”

Experience comes in lots of ways, though. It could be customer service or the smile you get when you walk into a store. While both of those weren’t as touched upon, the idea that plan prices could change and be easier to understand for everyone was.

“You can understand why a consumer is afraid to open their bill,” said Vicki Brady, Managing Director for the Customer Group at Optus. “How often have you been sitting around the table and heard a friend or family member complain about a huge and confusing phone bill?”

To deal with this, the Optus plans are changing, with new plan types.

First is “Optus My Plan” which will arrive with different value amounts per monthly price. For instance, the $50 plan nets to 450 minutes of calls and half a gigabyte of downloads, while the $60 plan brings that up to 600 minutes and 1GB of downloads.

While these prices aren’t insanely competitive for the amount of data thrown in, Optus is hoping to ease the blow of high fees that come from going over your limits, no longer charging x cents per meg and resulting in a massive bill, with $10 flat increases based on a gigabyte or more minutes of phone calls.

In essence, if you go over your plan, you’ll be increased to the next plan for the remainder of the month, and then brought back down to your current plan at the next month, so your bill is never thrown completely out of proportion.

That’s the theory, anyway.

The My Plan plans will be run on a 24 month contract, with the flexibility of the plans brought in because most people don’t know how they’re going to be using a phone over a two year timespan, which is a fair assumption.

The second plan type is the “Optus My SIM,” which features similar plan break downs — think voice in minutes and data in gigs — but run on either a month-to-month or 12 month contract. These plans are less expensive per month (from $25, in fact), but also include less talk-time and data. The new idea of extra packs of data and voice over on the My Plan options are also carried over here, too.

This new range of Optus plans will go into effect on July 1, and you’ll start to see the new Optus art in more places too, as the company moves away from the animals as fast as it can.