O2 and Orange are the latest brands to connect with fans through ‘random acts of kindness’ and say it’s an effective way to promote non-commercial messages.

Last month I wrote a piece on a report by consumer research company Trendwatching.com on the growing popularity of this concept –  in which brands use their communications channels to find customers and basically just do something nice for them.

Both O2 and Orange are running their own versions of this as a means of communicating with fans, without including a commercial message.

O2 is working with Nixon McInnes to create a collaborative storytelling piece of content by asking people to send pictures to match specific themes, which will be made into a physical book. The book will then be sent to anyone that has taken part.

Alongside this, O2 is also using its assets (including the O2 venue in London) to give back to consumers. Last week it simply used Twitter to find people that had trouble getting Kylie Minogue tickets, and sent them some.

Alex Pearmain, head of social media at O2, said something as straightforward as this helps to give big corporations a human side.

“It’s easy for customers to forget that a company is still a collection of people,” said Pearmain. “Other brands will follow this. It’s a way to create content that is non-commercial, which is a direction that smart digital marketers will take.”

Orange has for the past few months been using its blog ‘The Feed’ to create weekly pieces of content that also have no specific commercial relevance, but are enjoyable to customers.

This week, in the run-up to Easter, it hosted a competition for people to guess when a set of eggs would hatch. The company ran a live stream so that competition entrants could keep an eye out for which bird emerged first, last and other random placings predetermined by Orange.

In the colder months, The Feed also ran a week-long campaign called Winter Warmer. Orange drove around a van that dished out free hot chocolates for those that had a bad day, after asking people to tweet and nominate people that needed cheering up.

I’ve previously stressed the importance of not taking the concept and making it salesy, or creating a ‘random act of marketing’. Both O2 and Orange have done this well, balancing the non-commercial act while also being very clear that it has come from them.

Emma Pueyo, creative director at Poke – the agency behind Orange’s activity – said that providing entertaining content that doesn’t force people to share encourages people to spread the message.

“It’s an example of how you can help people experience great, tangible things for the sake of getting them engaged – while also showing off Orange’s brand values,” said Pueyo. “The less you force people to share, the more value you give them and the more people then tend to share. It’s almost like a physiological reaction.”

The Feed will continue to create weekly projects for the foreseeable future, while Pearmain also said that ‘random acts of kindness’ would become a regular part of O2’s strategy.