Issued by: Multimedia Solutions


Candice Goodman, mo-B director, says mo-B specialises in building relationships through the cellphone, mobile entertainment and integrating TV and mobile marketing campaigns.

“Fan Touch (www.fantouch.mobi) is a mobile fan club site designed for viewing on the cellphone. It allows fans to receive regular SMS updates from celebrities and reply to them in a controlled environment. SMS updates are personalised and give fans a sneak preview into celebrities' lives and the things they are involved in. Celebrities can also send out motivational messages, information on where they are performing and so on,” she says.

Celebrities already participating in Fan Touch include stars like the Idols winners Jody Williams, singer and performer Mara Louw, Connie Ferguson who plays Karabo in Generations, Karin van der Laag (Maggie in Isidingo) and Rantsatsi Rantsatsi who plays the lead role of Mandla in Soul City.

“The celebrities are able to use Fan Touch to maintain a relationship with their base of fans. This could include sharing personal triumphs, alerting fans to public appearances, or promotions they are involved in,” she says. “Soon this will also be expanded to include celebrity wallpapers, ringtones and other content that fans will be able to download.”

The site was designed and is hosted by Multimedia Solutions. Its CEO, Eddie Groenewald, says similar sites have been used overseas with great success.

“Adidas ran a similar type of campaign using an advert to push users to various mobisites. Targeting boys and girls aged 13 to 19, the ad features well known basketball stars positioning the concept that Basketball is a Brotherhood,” he says.

Fans could then call one of the stars, download tailored voicemail on their phones from the stars, specialised ringtones, and wallpaper. The fan mobisite drew 75 000 page views in the first week and some 8000 people opted in, providing their cellphone numbers. About a thousand of those people clicked to call one of the stars, Kevin Garnett, and 18 percent of those called him again. Adidas found that mobile advertising out-performed all other media for driving opt-ins at a fraction of the cost.

“Locally, Nike also gave away branded content of local sports starts in a portal hosted on Vodacom Live! as part of their ‘Using your body as a weapon' campaign. While Nike expected 15 000 downloads, it received 84 000 downloads in just over three weeks,” he says.

Goodman says successes like these show there is a hunger in the market from consumers for content and information from celebrities.

“mo-B will be looking to increase the number of celebrities on Fan Touch and will look to include other types of celebrities like South African sports stars, DJs, comedians etc,” she says.

For more information, check out www.fantouch.mobi from your cellphone or www.fantouch.co.za on the Internet.

Visit our PRESS OFFICE: Multi Media Solutions is the MMS Capital. We've built the only Multimedia Messaging Service that allows leading companies to liberate their content and fuel dynamic business communications. Front-line selling and marketing professionals can create and send text, sounds, images, and video in customised, attachment-free messages.- more....

[30 Jul 2008 17:04]

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