“Israeli customers of mobile operator Orange who have 3G phones will soon be able to kiss their bills goodbye — if they`re willing to watch a few commercials instead.”
“‘This isn`t a long term model that would make sense, since most consumers don`t want to spend hours watching ads on their phones,’ marketing expert Weingarten wrote to UPI.
‘But it might work well in targeted demographics such as teens who don`t have the money to pay the bill, but will become effective brand evangelists after viewing endless loops of … ads. At least, that`s what the advertisers are hoping for,’ Weingarten continued.”
From: Pay your cell-phone bill by watching ads
It kind of reminds me of a free dial-up internet access promotion that was running here a few years ago. Basically, you would use the Internet Service Provider’s dial-up software and it would display ads while you surfed the web. It was not very lucrative and the promotion lasted only a few months. I wonder how it will turn out.