this GigaOm post. We know that the US prepaid wireless sector lags behind its UK counterpart, so any article that purports to show the differences will interest me. That’s not exactly the case here. Instead, the author, Colin Gibbs, examines O2’s Top Up Surprises campaign, which “rewards users with prizes as they renew their accounts and enables advertisers to interact with consumers.” It sounds like a great idea, as customers can win more than just free minutes. As we’ve seen in both the US and the UK, though, mobile advertising platforms can fail as quickly as they succeed. A prime examples comes right from the UK. Blyk, an ad-supported free MVNO, started offering service in 2007, and by the next year had over 200,000 subscribers. That’s quite the success, and Blyk was not shy about it. They constantly touted their numbers and even tried to tell others how to do what they did. But then, not two years after launching, they discontinued service. Advertisers, once eager to serve ads to Blyk’s young customer base, found that it wasn’t working as well as expected. Virgin Mobile USA presents another case against mobile advertising. They had a wildly popular mobile ad service, Sugar Mama, which rewarded customers with free minutes in exchange for viewing ads and filling out surveys. Yet Virgin ended Sugar Mama in July because of unpaid funds. It was a great idea in theory, but in practice it didn’t work. Gibbs thinks that more prepaid carriers in America should try mobile advertising to attract more customers. The problem is finding a platform that works. Virgin is a warning to any US company that tries this, and a reminder that what works in the UK doesn’t necessarily work in the US. If prepaid carriers on this side of the Atlantic want to mimic O2’s Top Up Surprises, they’ll have to find a willing partner. As Virgin proved, that’s not so easy.]]>
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