I was just speaking and chairing at the Nokia Siemens Networks event in Cairo and learned of a cool very simple idea from Vodacom in South Africa. They offer a free "call me back" message service, that people can send these free SMS messages to friends when they want the friend to call. This is intended to replace the "binging" ie calling some one once (to bing) so the phone just rings once, and registers your call, hoping the person calls you back (or to signal some other info, such as the children might bing mother, to let her know, they have come home from school).
The problem with Binging is that it eats up network resources with no income to the mobile opertor/carrier. So now this free sponsored call me service is intended to replace the free binging. The recepient of the call me message, also receives one ad message (and the logic here is, that if the person sending the request is asking for the call, often that signals that the person does not have much money, and is asking the richer counterpart to call, ie that person is the better target for the advertising too)
A simple service that addresses a real need. Good idea. And I like it that this is advertising sponsored. (PS obviously my new eBook has 50 case studies on mobile advertising).
Comments