Wind Mobile is piloting a new service that offers incentives–including discounts–to subscribers who agree to receive targeted ads on their mobile device.
The Toronto-based company has partnered with MyScreen Mobile, which specializes in delivering targeted mobile ads, to develop the service.
The six-week pilot project began Tuesday, with plans to roll out the service across the entire Wind Mobile network in the first quarter of 2011.
The service delivers a relevant full-screen ad at the conclusion of a phone call. To ensure relevancy, participants are asked to create a profile containing basic biographical information as well as areas of interest within categories such as sports, entertainment, lifestyle and health.
“The thing that makes this particularly useful is you set the user experience yourself so you receive content you want,” said Michael O’Connor, co-founder of Wind Mobile and CEO of MyScreen. “I’m not going to be receiving content about dresses–I’m receiving content about discounts on Toronto Maple Leaf tickets.
O’Connor described the ads as “non-intrusive” and “colourful,” and said recipients can dismiss them with a click of a button. “It doesn’t disturb your mobile experience,” he said.
Ads can also include hot-keys that enable recipients to visit the advertiser’s website for special promotions or call a number to hear about special offers with a simple touch of a button.
The company currently has agreements in place with agencies and advertisers including Blockbuster, Yogen Fruz and RIM.
The ultimate goal, said O’Connor, is to make the service location-based, enabling Wind/MyScreen to use smartphones’ GPS capabilities to serve ads for products/services in close proximity to the user. O’Connor said that such capabilities are about a year away.
MyScreen has already introduced its service in five other countries including Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala and Mexico.
O’Connor wouldn’t disclose Wind Mobile’s Canadian subscriber base, although published reports have stated that it expects it to be “well north” of 200,000 by the end of the year. The company has a stated goal of attracting 1.5 million subscribers within the next three years.
