O2, the exclusive UK carrier for Apple's iPhone, has a new "brand extension". Its head of brand and marketing communications Shadi Halliwell is to roll out a range of luxury sex toys with the full support of the usually staid mobile telecoms giant.
According to Brand Republic, Halliwell launched the Shy vibrators brand in 2006, and is in discussions with potential stockists of the top-of-the-range sex toys.
Halliwell describes the Shy brand as the "Prada of sex toys".
Back in May 2007 iPod-maker Apple threatened to sue a sex shop over a vibrator that hooked up to an iPod and had similar advertising to that used in posters for the digital music player.
"We hope this request to remove it immediately will prevent us having to consider further action," said Apple lawyers at the time.
Shy is a range of "discreet and desirable" vibrators that its makers claim "you don't have to keep in the closet".
"Lovingly crafted and hand-finished" in London's Hatton Garden jewellery district the products are designed to be "beautiful and satisfyingly simple".
The sex toys have something in common with the Apple and its iPhone, according to the company's website: "Shy keeps function at the heart of its design. Gone are ugly buttons or switches. Shy introduces 'tap activation', which allows the user to tap once, twice or three times on the surface for their perfect performance, with a fourth tap to stop."
Halliwell described why she felt the need to branch out from mobile phones to vibrators: "The problem with sex toys would come up in conversation with friends. Why was everything on the market so unappealing and intimidating? So I went looking for something feminine and sophisticated but found nothing. That's when I decided to design my own"
Another shareholder in the brand, Susie Moore, was previously head of brand at O2.
Comments