Virgin Mobile USA, LLC News
New Marketing Partners Help Make Sugar Mama from Virgin Mobile USA Even Sweeter
WARREN, N.J.,
The company announced that several top brands, including Jive Records [Sony/BMG Entertainment], Levi Strauss Signature(R), Sony Pictures [Columbia/Tri-Star] and the U.S. Navy are sweetening the Sugar Mama deal for Virgin Mobile customers. The addition of these well-known national brands — joining charter sponsors Xbox (Microsoft) and truth(R), the American Legacy Foundation(R)'s national youth smoking prevention campaign — allows Virgin Mobile to bring even more options and benefits to its young customer base through advertising content specifically tailored for them.
Launched last summer, Sugar Mama is an innovative mobile advertising incentive program where customers opt-in to receive mobile and Web-based advertising content and are rewarded with free airtime for their Virgin Mobile phones. In order to receive airtime credit, customers simply interact with advertising or other marketing creative, then click through or text back responses to questions from partner brands. This interaction gives advertisers valuable feedback from a core target audience directly engaged with the product, while earning the customer one free minute of airtime for each spot viewed online.
"Virgin Mobile broke new ground with Sugar Mama, in terms of offering a brand new way for marketers to engage with our customers," said
In keeping with the Virgin Mobile philosophy, Sugar Mama sponsors are carefully chosen from like-minded products and services most valuable and appealing to Virgin Mobile's youth-focused network of more than 4.6 million customers. Each sponsor is able to offer content it feels will best suit both its needs and the Sugar Mama platform and audience. For Sony Pictures, that means movie trailers; for Jive Records, customers see portions of music videos. The U.S. Navy features spots similar to its TV placements. Virgin Mobile recently enhanced the Sugar Mama platform with additional multi-media functionality including viral elements.
"What really attracted us to the Sugar Mama program is that it is truly a pull vs. a push tactic," explained Stacy Doren, director, media and online, Levi Strauss Signature(R). "The audience is electing to receive the message and interact with the Levi Strauss Signature(R) brand in order to receive the bonus air time. It provides a new and innovative way to reach our consumers and provides us with the assurance that our message is being heard." "Virgin Mobile's main demographic tends to overlap with a core movie- going audience for many of our theatrical releases. The Sugar Mama program allows us to target those consumers in a unique way, have them interact with our branded movie content for our upcoming movie, The Messengers, and get rewarded with a relevant form of currency — airtime," said Dwight Caines, executive vice president, Worldwide Digital Marketing Strategy for Columbia TriStar Marketing Group. "The United States Navy is always seeking innovative ways to engage with our target audience, for whom technology is second nature," said Commander David Hostetler, director of advertising plans for the United States Navy. "Partnering with Virgin Mobile provides us with a unique and effective way to open a two-way dialog with potential recruits."
Virgin Mobile customers can choose to participate in Sugar Mama by opting in at www.virginmobileusa.com. Customers are required to be over the age of 13 and to provide limited demographic information. To earn airtime, they have the option of watching a streaming video advertisement or receiving SMS messages that contain advertisements, quizzes or discounts.
Virgin Mobile's Sugar Mama is powered by Ultramercial LLC, which provides the back-end functionality allowing viewers to watch and interact with a full- screen commercial and receive airtime that the customer would otherwise have to pay for by credit card or other form of airtime Top-Up.
About Virgin Mobile USA, LLC:
The nation's leading wireless youth network, Virgin Mobile USA www.virginmobileusa.com provides more than 4.6 million customers with the most flexibility and choice in wireless products and services without long-term contracts. The company operates on the Sprint Nationwide PCS network, and is a joint venture between
SOURCE Virgin Mobile USA, LLC
