Quote:
Originally Posted by Pasanonic
Indeed. There is already a company ( forgive my vagueness, I'll look it up after I type ) who are offering UK students free mobile phones and free minutes in exchange for nothing more than accepting texts from advertisers.
That again is acceptable to me, there is a clear benefit for all parties and there is choice. ( take it or leave it )
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Suspect you're thinking of
Blyk who are just celebrating their 100,000th signup -- they offer 217 free texts and 43 free minutes (to any UK network) every month in return for receiving texts or MMSs for products and services reasonably well targeted at their exclusive 18-24 market.
(A Blyk user has been writing day-by-day accounts of his experience (and listing all the ads) for
SMS Text News and it doesn't appear to be anywhere near as bad as I'd expected.)
But I'm thinking more of intelligent(?), 'contextual' targeted mobile advertising: imagine a menu item on your phone called "Nearest to me" which leads to a list of categories (eg. cashpoint, pub, pizza, bus stop, hospital, petrol), select one and not only does your phone give you the name, address and phone number but also a map showing your location, the 'target' location and directions to get there. In time, it could even know what kind of pub you like and which bus you're likely to be catching and offer you it's timetable...
Many businesses would pay
a small fortune for those clicks -- not least the nearest florist to the hospital! -- and, I suspect most people would be happy for the assistance rather than feeling like a bucket for ad-fodder.
In my less than humble opinion, *that's* the area of advertising that'll succeed in the future.