New Marketing Partners Help Make Sugar Mama from Virgin Mobile USA Even Sweeter

Deals with Jive Records, Levi Strauss Signature(R), Sony Pictures, U.S. Navy Expand Innovative Advertising Incentive Program

WARREN, N.J., Jan. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading U.S. youth wireless network Virgin Mobile USA is kicking off 2007 by offering customers new opportunities for earning wireless "airtime in their spare time" through its innovative Sugar Mama marketing program.

The company announced that several top brands, including Jive Records[Sony/BMG Entertainment], Levi Strauss Signature(R), Sony Pictures[Columbia/Tri-Star] and the U.S. Navy are sweetening the Sugar Mama deal for Virgin Mobile customers. The addition of these well-known national brands -- joining charter sponsors Xbox (Microsoft) and truth(R), the American Legacy Foundation(R)'s national youth smoking prevention campaign-- allows Virgin Mobile to bring even more options and benefits to its young customer base through advertising content specifically tailored for them.

Launched last summer, Sugar Mama is an innovative mobile advertising incentive program where customers opt-in to receive mobile and Web-based advertising content and are rewarded with free airtime for their Virgin Mobile phones. In order to receive airtime credit, customers simply interact with advertising or other marketing creative, then click through or text back responses to questions from partner brands. This interaction gives advertisers valuable feedback from a core target audience directly engaged with the product, while earning the customer one free minute of airtime for each spot viewed online.

"Virgin Mobile broke new ground with Sugar Mama, in terms of offering brand new way for marketers to engage with our customers," said Howard Handler, chief marketing officer, Virgin Mobile USA. "The response to date has been tremendous so we're excited to bring this new slate of forward-thinking brands into the Sugar Mama family." Since its launch, Sugar Mama has hosted more than 250,000 customers, with approximately 1,000 new users opting in each day. Virgin Mobile customers have earned over three million free minutes of airtime from Sugar Mama viewing.

In keeping with the Virgin Mobile philosophy, Sugar Mama sponsors are carefully chosen from like-minded products and services most valuable and appealing to Virgin Mobile's youth-focused network of more than 4.6 million customers. Each sponsor is able to offer content it feels will best suit both its needs and the Sugar Mama platform and audience. For Sony Pictures, that means movie trailers; for Jive Records, customers see portions of music videos. The U.S. Navy features spots similar to its TV placements.

Virgin Mobile recently enhanced the Sugar Mama platform with additional multi-media functionality including viral elements.

"What really attracted us to the Sugar Mama program is that it is truly a pull vs. a push tactic," explained Stacy Doren, director, media and online, Levi Strauss Signature(R). "The audience is electing to receive the message and interact with the Levi Strauss Signature(R) brand in order to receive the bonus air time. It provides a new and innovative way to reach our consumers and provides us with the assurance that our message is being heard.

"Virgin Mobile's main demographic tends to overlap with a core movie- going audience for many of our theatrical releases. The Sugar Mama program allows us to target those consumers in a unique way, have them interact with our branded movie content for our upcoming movie, The Messengers, and get rewarded with a relevant form of currency airtime," said Dwight Caines, executive vice president, Worldwide Digital Marketing Strategy for Columbia TriStar Marketing Group.

"The United States Navy is always seeking innovative ways to engage with our target audience, for whom technology is second nature," said Commander David Hostetler, director of advertising plans for the United States Navy. "Partnering with Virgin Mobile provides us with a unique and effective way to open a two-way dialog with potential recruits."

Virgin Mobile customers can choose to participate in Sugar Mama by opting in at http://www.virginmobileusa.com. Customers are required to be over the age of 13 and to provide limited demographic information. To earn airtime, they have the option of watching a streaming video advertisement or receiving SMS messages that contain advertisements, quizzes or discounts.

Virgin Mobile's Sugar Mama is powered by Ultramercial LLC, which provides the back-end functionality allowing viewers to watch and interact with a full- screen commercial and receive airtime that the customer would otherwise have to pay for by credit card or other form of airtime Top-Up.

About Virgin Mobile USA, LLC:

The nation's leading wireless youth network, Virgin Mobile USA

http://www.virginmobileusa.com provides more than 4.6 million customers with the most flexibility and choice in wireless products and services without long-term contracts. The company operates on the Sprint Nationwide PCS network, and is a joint venture between Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Sprint Nextel. J.D. Power and Associates has ranked Virgin Mobile highest in customer satisfaction among wireless prepaid services, and its own customers report a 91% satisfaction rate. Proud of its charitable and environmental programs, Virgin Mobile donates 5% of profits from downloadable content to The RE*Generation, its pro-social initiative to help millions of at-risk and homeless teens; and provides postage-paid return envelopes in every new package for customers to recycle old phones.