Lycos Teams With Virgin For SMS Deal

Lycos is to run an online campiagn to promote Virgin mobile’s new cut price phone and text messaging rates.

Virgin Mobile will feature special creatives on Lycos’ SMS composer service, which will run alongside existing TV, cinema, radio and press campaigns.

Managing director of Lycos UK, Alex Kovach, commented: “At Lycos UK we are developing a media property capable of providing our partners with direct access to their target markets. With this campaign we can offer Virgin Mobile a large community of users who are interested in mobile services and who use Lycos every day to send free SMS, a perfect audience for Virgin’s new text messaging proposition.”

James Kydd, brand director of Virgin Mobile, added: “We were attracted to Lycos UK because of its audience of mobile savvy users who enjoy the tongue in cheek humour synonymous with the Virgin Mobile brand. The SMS composer is the perfect vehicle for our campaign as it provides an access point to a large community of mobile users who are already keen on text messaging services.”

Lycos UK recently launched a new free-to-access online channel called Remember The 80s, in an attempt to allow users to re-visit the decade and sample the music, films and fashion of the era (see Lycos Launches Eighties Nostalgia Channel).

Recent figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Price Waterhouse Coopers show that online adspend for 2002 reached £197 million, which equates to a 1.4% share of the total UK advertising market (see Feature: Internet Advertising Flexes Its Muscles).

Lycos: 020 7881 6500 www.lycos.co.uk

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