- Inspired by the U.K.’s renowned V Festival, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Who will headline a U.S. concert for Virgin Mobile USA. VirginFest, an all-day music festival, is set for Sept. 23 at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. At left is Michael Balzary, aka Flea, of The Red Hot Chili Peppers performing live at Earls Court London.
Above, Virgin Mobile execs announced the festival (left to right): Dan Porter, Virgin USA vice president of corporate development; Sam Branson (son of Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Festival ambassador); Howard Handler, CMO of Virgin Mobile USA; Peter Boyd, Virgin Mobile USA VP of marketing; and event producer Andrew Dreskin from IMP.
- To promote its new eyewear, FUNK sunglasses is partnering with Gofresh in a community-based mobile marketingcampaign.
The campaign is set to launch in Gofresh’s itsmy.com online community, which claims members in more than 80 countries. Community members can design custom wallpapers using FUNK sunglasses on celebrities, or use their own pictures beginning in August. The pics can be saved to a handset or sent as a multimedia message. Gofresh noted the campaign has been optimized for more than 2,500 mobile phones and display sizes.
- Key findings in a new report out of the U.K. shed a little light on the relationships between people and their cell phones. Around 400,000 Brits, or 9 percent, of 18- to 24-year-olds said they are addicted to their phones, so much so that they no longer feel in control of how they use it.
But they use it in their love lives. More than half of mobile-phone users in that age group have either sent or received an invitation to a date by a text; and half of young adult phone users have sent or received a sexually explicit text. The survey was conducted for The Carphone Warehouse by YouGov, and encompassed 16,500 British adults who use mobile phones.
More than one in four men and women in that age group also admit that they regularly use their mobile phones to keep in touch with someone they don’t want their partner or family to know about. And only 14 percent of people would turn their phone off completely when having sex.
However, handsets also can be used to deter unwanted advances. A full 54 percent of young women said they sometimes use their mobile phones to deter people from approaching them.
Etc.
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