Stuart Corner
Monday, 04 February 2008 11:36
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
Vodafone Australia last month announced free advertiser-funded mobile content predicting that, "in three to five years, mobile content and possibly even mobile calls will be heavily subsidised by advertisers." In Europe Blyk is already pioneering these, and expanding rapidly.
Blyk launched in the UK in September and, according to one press report has just revealed that it now has 30,000 registered users. These each get 43 minutes of free calls and 215 free text messages each month. Blyk has also just announced plans to expand into Holland, and has secured backing from new investors Goldman Sachs and Industrial and Financial Investments Company (IFIC). They join a roster that includes Sofinnova Partners and a number of private investors. The company said expansion into other European markets was also under discussion.
As advertisers have to pay for the free phone calls Blyk's customers enjoy it's very important to them, and to Blyk, that these advertisements are relevant. To this end Blyk has a rather unusual approach to targeting its market: it will accept you as a customer only if you are between 18 and 24 years of age, and proof of age is required.
As it is clearly not going to give customers the flick on their 25th birthday, this approach is clearly only short term until the company grows and presumably develops means of targeting ads to different audiences.
Meanwhile an Australian company with the unlikely name of Fluc is
promising users hard cash in return for receiving ads on their mobiles. And back in 2005 I
reported on an other Australian company, Communitel that was offering free fixed line calls funded by surveys and advertising. Judging by its web site, it is still going, but Blyk is certainly the one the world is watching to see if, and how, the advertising-funded phone call model develops.
Ovum analyst Steven Hartley recently met with Blyk executives. At that time Blyk had not gone public with subscriber numbers, but he reported "[Blyk did] reveal that as of January 2008 it was 'ahead of target' for 100,000 'members' within twelve months of the launch in September 2007...[and] did reveal that it has now run over 500 advertising campaigns for over fifty brands across fourteen industries with an average response rate of 29 percent."
