ORANGE ANNOUNCES THE LAUNCH OF AD-FUNDED VIDEO MAGAZINE SERVICE ‘ZAP!’ ON ORANGE WORLD

by: Bena Roberts Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

Orange has announced the launch of a new advertisement-supported video magazine service on Orange World – ‘Zap!’ The new service will offer free video clips to all customers with a video enabled 2G or 3G handset on both Pay As You Go and Pay Monthly contracts.

The service, beginning June 25th, will allow customers to access video clips for free in exchange for watching advertising before their chosen video. ‘Zap!’ will feature celebrity, lifestyle, news and entertainment clips from broadcasters such as ITV, Sky, BBC Worldwide and ITN. Clips ranging from Little Britain to Soccer AM will be updated twice daily giving Orange customers a great snacking selection of entertainment on the go.
Which mobile advertising agencies are involved?
The service is being managed by IMP Media who have worked with Orange to create a magazine style experience that is tailored over time to meet the individual viewer’s interests.

Mobile advertising company Rhythm NewMedia is both selling and serving the advertisements on the Orange portal and has already signed up a number of advertisers including Twentieth Century Fox, Wrigley’s, Barclaycard, Cisco, Nissan, Paramount movies and Heat magazine.

What we think?
If this is totally free that is good. I remember hearing from billing companies that offering videos for free was OK - but data charges were still added. On top of that more often than not additional data charges from ad companies were also thrown in.

The content is free but the data isn’t. I also have to laugh as mobile contnet services are replicating fashion houses. When you need a new idea just replicate the old one with a twist. I remember when Refresh launched mobile magazines on T-Mobile (what were they called?)

It didn’t work then lets see what happens to the video ad funded alternative.