Lots of talk lately about new ad-supported MVNO Blyk.
In a nutshell, 16-24 year old phone owners will be able to get 217 free texts and 43 minutes of talk if they insert a Blyk SIM and agree to receive 6 SMS/MMS ads a day from brands that they’ve selected themselves.
The list of brands already includes major players such as L’Oreal and Coca Cola.
There’s a lot I like about Blyk. I like the ex-Nokia team they’ve got on board, and I love the permission plus preference (“open marketing”) model that they’re rocking. I love the warm, fuzzy and consciously amateur way they’re going about a YouTube strategy and I love the Gmail style “invitation” access to the service once it’s been initially seeded.
But I’m still currently trying to coerce friends and friends of friends, (Facebook finally finds real utility for me…), who work in universities to see if they can’t reach out to their students on my behalf.
Why? Because it’s easy to talk about how innovative, disruptive, revolutionary etc. this service is, and to respect the thinking that’s gone into ensuring that the executions received are designed for interaction etc. etc., but I’ve been burnt in the past when it comes to second guessing a younger audience. (Sometimes I feel more digital dinosaur than immigrant).
Questions on my mind:
According to Blyk’s Marko in a session I was in the other week, the messages will come at the same time every day. Score one for ensuring familiarity, but doesn’t this make it even easier to ignore them on a regular basis? I’m unaware of any mechanic that insists on anything beyond receipt to maintain your free calls.
Then there’s the whole issue of what is – let’s face it – a student audience and their attitude to being bought off by brands. Or does no one read “No Logo” or listen to Bill Hicks anymore? (Quoth the dinosaur).
And it’s not as if the model’s as new or revolutionary as a lot of media coverage would have you believe. Virgin Mobile USA’s dubiously named service “Sugar Mama” (why not just go the whole hog and call it ”Cougar,” guys?) has been working a similar mechanic in the states since last year. Anyone hear about that revolutionising the dynamics of either the advertising or mobile industries? Didn’t think so.
Then there’s Xero (“son of Gizmondo”) who at least seem to have plans in place to ensure that users actually watch the 4 video commercials sent to their phones on a daily basis. Add to that the talk of MySpace getting into the MVNO market with an ad-subsidised model and the constant mobile mutterings of Google’s Eric Schmidt and there’s a lot more than Blyk going on in the space.
But still, I’ll hold back on any judgement until (hopefully) those students I’m trying to get hold of can give me a real world picture. I’ll also continue – whenever Blyk comes up in conversation – to make facetious comments about the suitability (or not) of the brand name for a South African roll out.
