A company called sellAring wants to replace the dull ringback tones with (interesting?) ads for smartphone users. Their idea is to turn the usual waiting time into an opportunity brands would use to reach customers through 10-second ads.
Apparently, 30 hours a year on average was being frittered away listening to ring back tones, making for an untapped market with solid potential.
And so the new “ears ahead” ad platform was born, initially targeting Android users. Unlike traditional mobile ads, the message is planted not through the eyes but the ears and the 10-second ad always plays in full.
It is said (press release) that such a proposition makes sense for all of the parties, including advertisers, app developers and smartphone users.
Now I’m not sure what to think about it. I do understand sellAring doesn’t impede on the end-user’s experience and I love them for that. However, I’m not sure audio ads are the way to go, though I may be wrong. In any case you can get additional information about this pretty interesting service from a dedicated website…