March 27, 2007 | posted by Michael Baxter in IABN |

If you have kids you will know the feeling. “Can I have some money for my mobile phone please?”

But, there is a solution, or at least there may be.

Blyk, reckons it has the answer: advertising.

The company, which is based in Finland, was founded by ex Nokia stalwart Pekka Ala-Pietil#228; and TV and ad man Antti #214;hrling. It’s big idea is to fund the cost of a mobile phone call through advertising. The end result is free calls, although you will have to put up with the intrusion of advertising on your personal phone. But since this product is aimed at the 16 to 24 year old market, maybe that won’t matter.

And, once when ‘Aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote’, it appears the UK will get the Blyk treatment.

Yesterday, the company was in Cannes, at the Venture Market Europe conference, where it announced advertising deals with Buena Vista, Coca-Cola, I-play Mobile Gaming, L’Oreal Paris, StepStone and Yell.com to advertise on the UK service when it is launched.

These days, the 16 to 24 market is difficult for advertisers to reach, and that simple fact reveals Blyk’s USP.

David Gosen, CEO of I-play Mobile Gaming, put it neatly when he said: “Blyk provides visibility on who and when people are playing mobile games, information which the industry has been sorely in need of. CRM is a basic business principle to driving revenues and building loyalty and we haven’t been able to put this in place until we have access to real data on what our customers are doing. Now, thanks to Blyk’s offering, we can start to have some transparency on this issue.”

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