Blyk signs firms for mobile ad service

Media Week, Media Week, 27 March 2007, 00:00am

Blyk, a new mobile phone network that allows people to make free phone calls in return for receiving advertising, has signed up Buena Vista, Coca-Cola, I-play Mobile Gaming, L'Oreal Paris, Stepstone and Yell.com as some of its first advertisers.

The new service is launching in the summer and will piggyback on another, as yet unnamed, mobile network.

Blyk offers free mobile phone calls and text messages in return for receiving advertising to mobile handsets. The target audience is 16 to 24-year-olds.

Users of the network have to sign up to the scheme and give details of their preferences to receive targeted advertising.

The service is aiming to serve a pan-European audience, but will launch first in the UK this summer. It has been founded by Pekka Ala-Pietila, a former president of the Nokia Corporation, and Antti Ohrling, chairman and chief executive of Contra Group.