Virgin Mobile US will partner with Microsoft's Xbox, Pepsico, and the American Legacy Foundation's anti-smoking "Truth" campaign (www.whudafxup.com!!!) to show it's customers ads in exchange for free airtime. The advertisers apparently want access to Virgin Mobile's young userbase...
Here's the deal: Watch a 30-second ad on the Virgin Web site, then answer a few questions to show you were paying attention. Or, if you prefer, answer a few multiple-choice questions through a brief text-message exchange. In return you get one minute of talk time.
Um. While we don't see how this would be appealing at all. Perhaps if you had no idea what Xbox, Pepsico or the "truth" campaign was about (plus if the ads themselves are great), and very very free, it might seem like a good value proposition.
Just make sure you're not using the mobile phone when you watch the ad...
[via Businessweek]
