Blyk announces Vodafone as its exclusive partner in the Netherlands

I’ve just got this press release in from Blyk. I couldn’t see it on their website so I’m publishing it verbatim (something, I don’t usually do).

Aligned to its global expansion strategy, the mobile engagement media will launch its brand in the Netherlands in partnership with Vodafone

Helsinki, London and Amsterdam, 23 July 2009 – Blyk, the mobile engagement media, today announces Vodafone as its exclusive partner in the Netherlands.

The partnership between Blyk and Vodafone builds upon a relationship between the two companies, which started in 2008, with a view to expanding the Blyk brand. The partnership will bring the Blyk brand and media model to the Netherlands and it is aligned to both companies’ strategies for growth and leadership in mobile advertising.

“We’re extremely pleased to be extending our relationship with Vodafone. For Blyk, the partnership is part of a global strategy to bring scale and speed to our operations, while continuing to provide an innovative and valuable proposition for both consumers and advertisers. Together with Vodafone, we intend to build a game changing engagement media in the Dutch market.” says Blyk co-founder and CEO, Pekka Ala-Pietilä. “Our relationship will include a co-development of the consumer proposition for the Netherlands and audience management. Blyk will have responsibility for the advertising sales and technology.”

Eric Kip, Managing Director Blyk Netherlands, says: “The Netherlands has the third highest advertising spend per capita in Europe and is a hub for many global companies and ad agencies, so it is an obvious territory for Blyk’s expansion. The advertising market, whilst both creative and dynamic, is also cluttered and we believe youth brands will welcome a highly engaging communication channel like Blyk. We are confident that both Dutch advertisers and global advertisers will make use of Blyk’s unique ability to connect them with an important consumer segment.”

Tuesday tidbits

Such a lovely afternoon here in London town and yet, I'm sat behind a keyboard instead of supping something chilled and sparkling in the sunshine by the river. Hey ho!

Since I am sat at a keyboard, I thought I'd share some links with you of interesting stuff I've been looking at recently.

What young people think of the Iphone

They're smart these youngsters. They can appreciate good design, but also understand features and benefits. And they're clearly not all Apple fanboys and fangirls. SMSTextNews has a youthful roving reporter who's been asking his mates what they think of the Iphone. Isaah, 15, first did this back in November last year. And he has revisited his pals and got them to actually play with an Iphone and tell us what they think. His friends have mixed feelings about it - some don't like that it doesn't have buttons, for others the camera is important and not good enough on the Iphone. For others, they think it's 'wicked man'. We all know you can't please all of the people all of the time. Worth a look for the genuine comments. Next time Issah, can you record it so we can hear the comments please?

I love Blykwatch on SMSTextNews. Ricky, SMSTextNews' resident Blyk Watcher, has given us an update today with the lowdown on the marketing messages received, some comments about customer service and thoughts on data usage and mobile internet. All really good stuff and well worth a read. Oh, and for those of you who don't know, Blyk is the free mobile network aimed at 16 to 24 year olds and it's ad-funded. If you're interested in some of the detail of their campaigns, then look no further than their media site. And for some further customer insight, it might be worth checking out the Blyk customer forums.

Dizzler Rocks!

No really, it does. Dizzler is a free downloadable application allows users to search online and play free music, videos, games, and radio stations on their desktop or mobile device. I've just been playing with it online, and aside from the fact that I haven't been able to update my profile, the music playing bit of it has been working extremely well and there's a very comprehensive back catalogue available.

And while we're at it, twitter rocks too because that's how I heard about it from my network of twitter pals. MobileMaggie was twittering thanks to Freecloud for alerting her to Dizzler. So I took up the beacon and checked it out too and in turn shared the Dizzler love with J_Mac who wrote about it here.

Monday's mobile marketing tidbits

Blyk's delaying its launch until October. No bad thing as July and August are quiet times in retail. IMHO, Blyk should be launching in September to get the school, college and university kids signed up as they go back for the Autumn term, and that starts early September for schools and Sixth Form Colleges. Come October, we'll already be into half-term and well into silly season for Christmas which may be too late to launch something. I wonder if Blyk realises what an enormous task they've taken on? And I wonder if they've managed to sort out data charges so they can offer their customers a proper mobile content and media experience via wap or mobile internet?

Borders is extending their mobile marketing effort to provide sample chapters to customers' phones for free to promote new book titles. Details are currently a bit sketchy. I'm interested to see how this works in practice. The best example I've seen of this in the past was a poster campaign I saw at a railway station promoting a new thriller, Mr Clarinet. You texted in a keyword to a shortcode and by return, got back a link to a wapsite where you could read a synopsis of the book, part of the first chapter, find out more about the author and also click to buy the book. Perfect for whiling away 10 or 20 minutes while you are waiting for a train.

Three UK has launched 3next.mobi which is a user generated catalogue of stuff to do on your phone. A very nice idea where you can add applications and services that you like and add them in with your review of the service. It's free to join and not restricted to Three customers although it's designed specifically for Three's X-Series customers. Worth a look as an example of how to market content services. http://www.3next.mobi

And finally, Admob has now served more than 4 billion wap adverts, the last billion being published in the last 35 days. Way to go!