Big Changes Ahead as Meteor Becomes eir

That’s it, over, kaput, finito an end of an era.

Come September, Meteor will be no more and in its place, eir will take over. Back in 2001, Meteor was established. It quickly became the brand of the youth with savage Pay As You Go offers, even offering texts to everyone – remember when that was important? Combining this with catchy jingles, Meteor was truly a revolutionary brand. While it’s sad to see it go as a name, nothing will really change for the customer.

Way back in 2005, eir, then Eircom, bought the Meteor brand. Now after a long a fruitful 12 years the orange team will hang up their boots for good.

Eir Ceo Richard Moat has said:

The trAnsition will be seamless, and Meteor customers will continue using their mobiles exactly as before – with the added benefit of a world of possibilities

He also believes:

By focusing on a single mobile brand and reducing the duplication of supporting two brands, we can offer better value and increased innovation

Interestingly, Moat believes that most customers were not actually aware that Meteor and eir were part of the same brand. This fact is key to the transition. To you or I or any of the common punters, nothing changes, just the name on the top of your phone. Unlike when Three and O2 merged or the recent EU Roaming contract change for Three customers, you will not be able to walk away from your contract early for the simple fact that all offers have been the same for over year. We reckon this has been in the pipeline for a while.

If you’re not of the 1.1m customers that received a text or an email in the last couple of days, fear not. eir have assured customers that soon the full terms and conditions of the switch will be relayed. For the most part, this looks like nothing more than a simple name change.

“This decision reflects the confidence we have in the eir brand,” said Richard Moat, the company’s chief executive.

Over the next couple of months, all Meteor stores will be rebranded as eir and that’s the general gist of it.

For more info check out the FAQ on eir’s site.

Meteor’s Top 5 Ads

To celebrate what has been an iconic brand in Ireland over the years, here are our favourite ads from Meteor. Their marketing team were known to make some whopper ads down the years. Wanna see our favourites from down the years? Bet your sweet ass you do!

Smarter Way To Chat Up

Meteor showing the pulling power of their plans and the beloved Nokia 3310. i just wonder if calls were even that cheap back in the day.

Black Friday Ad

Meteor really pulled out all the stops at Christmas, expanding that to Black Friday. This lad appeared in a few campaigns and, to be fair, was always gas.

The Meteor Tea Cosy Ad

This actually caused a massive stir when it launched amid fears it created a negative image of the elderly. Non-sense surely? What do you think?

The Christmas Party

If you mention Meteor ads in Goos3D Tower and Martin is floating around, he’ll always tell you this ruined Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire for him. Not just because of the shrill laugh in the ad, but because no video of it can be found. Some say it didn’t even happen. To this date, Martin isn’t even sure if it was Meteor.

Big Jugs

Here’s Meteor’s classic humour in the shape of big jugs. Can’t wait for this page to start appearing in Google for that phrase.