Ben NL

History

On August 28, 2000, Belgacom, T-Mobile International, and Tele Danmark applied for permission to share control of Ben Nederland Holding (“Ben”). At that time, Belgacom was the principal telecommunications provider in Belgium, Tele Danmark the principal telecommunications provider in Denmark, and T-Mobile International a mobile telephony service provider and subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. Ben was to become a “full function joint venture” and function as an independent company.

Ben emerged on the Dutch mobile market at a time when mobile phones were still a status symbol and were primarily used by business people. Ben expressly targeted a younger group of users with its trendy, minimalistic advertising using word-play with its name. "Ben" is a common first name in the Netherlands and also, in Dutch, roughly translates into "I am". Examples of this are the slogans "Ik ben Ben" (I am Ben) and "Ben Bereikbaar" (I'm available/reachable).

The initial launch of Ben was marked with a 3-minute television ad shown simultaneously on all major TV stations in the Netherlands. The company launched several viral advertising campaigns in clothing stores, clubs, bars, movie theaters and other places where a primarily younger audience could be targeted. Many cafés and cinemas in the Netherlands still sport the "Ben even uit" stickers on their doors, which means about the same as "I've just gone out for a bit" or "I've just (been) turned off for a while", asking customers to turn off their phones before entering.

Overall marketing for Ben in the Netherlands was considered by most to be trendy and artistic. The premieres of new Ben television ads were usually announced weeks in advance and watched with great anticipation.

On September 20, 2002, Ben was purchased by T-Mobile Netherlands, a 100% subsidiary of T-Mobile International. By 2003, T-Mobile had completed a worldwide rebranding of all its mobile telecommunications assets, and the name Ben was changed to T-Mobile Netherlands.