Virgin Mobile is dressing up this latest variation on the age old theme of advertising with the claim that it will  give customers "a new way to take control of their wireless lives".

Does this mean that their wireless lives are presently out of control? What it actually means is that customers can earn free call minutes by watching ads, either on the web or their mobile and then answering questions to prove they have done so.

We are also told that the rewards for this activity will be more than merely financial. According to Virgin Mobile USA CEO, Dan Schulman, "Our partner brands will be able to enrich the lives of Virgin Mobile users while customising how they engage with our base - all while adding a smart and targeted mobile channel to their media mix."

Maybe. But there seems to be a strong element of market research in this. One of the initial advertisers is Microsoft's Xbox division and, according to director of Xbox marketing, Chris Di Cesare, "We're always seeking opportunities to learn from our customers how we can deliver the best gaming experiences possible on Xbox 360. Virgin Mobile's SugarMama (don't ask me why they call it that) program provides us with a new way to drive consumer awareness yet gain valuable insight from our customers that helps us continually deliver new breakthroughs in gaming entertainment."

Again, maybe. But I suspect the fact that because the incentive is to earn free airtime, the whole system will self-select a subset of the target market that is perhaps cash-strapped and can be bothered to respond to these adverts-cum-surveys for the sake of a few minutes free air time.

According to one report, customers have to watch a 30 second ad, then answer some questions in return for one minute of free airtime, normally charged at $US0.25. The maxim credit they will be able to earn in a month will be 75 minutes,

The report suggested that this equated to earning $US18.75 for less than an hour's work. Sounds like easy money when they put it like that, but the reality is that we are talking about 75 separate interactions with an online ad then answering some questions.

Maybe users will be able to sit down and churn through all these in less than an hour for their $18.75, but I suspect that in reality the process will not be quite that easy.

And offering incentives for any kind of survey and expecting valid results is always fraught with difficulties. Take for example the Australian VoIP provider that conducted an online survey of its customers in order to gain some, supposedly, valid feedback on user perceptions.

It solicited responses from 2500 customers and received 1200 responses, a response rate that is almost unheard of. The feedback was reported to have been "overwhelmingly positive". That may have been in part due to the fact that customers got some call credits in return for completing the survey and by the very fact that they were still customers they were probably reasonably pleased with the service.

Vodafone Mobile claims that its mission is "to super-serve a desirable and often hard-to-reach audience".  And if the US youth market is hard to reach, simple bribery won't deliver. What Vodafone Mobile will have to do is convince its customers that its cool to do these surveys for free calls.

Or as Virgin Mobile puts it: have their lives enriched while being engaged by a customised, smart and targeted mobile channel. That sounds anything  but cool.