Jiffy Lube and several Portland-area companies are taking part in a pilot program that provides free content and discounts exclusively to Cricket Communications' subscribers.

The Cricket Perks pilot program, powered by Mobile Posse, underscores a push by advertisers nationwide to find creative ways to reach potential customers. Subscriber can access content such as the weather forecast, a list of new movies, ticket discounts and restaurant deals.

"Consumers have their handsets with them when they're out and about, and we can help drive people to any merchant with a physical location, and Jiffy Lube obviously falls into that category," said Jon Jackson, CEO of Mobile Posse, McLean, VA. "We say to consumers, 'Get content on your phone, tell us your interests, weather, sports scores, trivia, etc., and we'll send you discounts for products and services.'"

In Portland, Jiffy Lube, Game Crazy, Global Spectrum and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry have created and begun providing offers to LCW's customers via Cricket Perks.
Several national advertisers are also in the mix, although they declined to be named.

Jiffy Lube, a provider of preventative maintenance service for vehicles, offered 10 dollars off on a Jiffy Lube Signature Service Oil Change in the Portland, Salem and Vancouver area locations.

Over the four week duration of this campaign, the click-through rate averaged 22.8 percent and on average the unique subscriber engagement for the campaign was 56.28 percent.

"We are always looking for new and innovative ways to reach consumers and expand our base of loyal and repeat customers," said Janice Jack, Portland, OR-based spokeswoman for Jiffy Lube, in a written statement. "Cricket Perks has given us the ability to make an instant connection with consumers while they are mobile and more likely to respond to an offer by simply bringing in their mobile phone to one of our locations.

"We like the simplicity of this approach -- no coupons to clip -- and are excited about the early results of the campaign," he said.

Cricket Perks delivers information to specific wireless customers based on their ZIP code, age, gender, time of day or day of the week.

The delivered data ranges from informational resources such as weather and sports scores to coupon-like advertisements from local and national companies.

For example, restaurants can provide lunchtime coupons, retailers can provide special deals for nearby shoppers, or a museum can offer family discounts.

Cricket Perks is available on several Motorola, Kyocera, UTStarcom and Samsung handsets.

Cricket Perks is based on technology created by Mobile Posse, which claims to be the first company to launch idle-screen-based mobile advertising in the United States.

Using an intricate system of targeting parameters and content-serving software, the technology enables content providers and operators to deliver relevant information to participating wireless customers based on their location, age, gender, time of day, day of the week and interests.

As with Cricket Perks, Mobile Posse creates white-label products for the carriers with which they work.

LCW Wireless is joint venture between Cricket Communications Inc., CSM Wireless and WLPCS Management providing Cricket wireless service in Portland, Salem, and Eugene, OR, and Vancouver, WA.

"Our mobile campaigns are often offer based, with mobile coupons or click-to-call, but sometimes they're branding exercises," Mr. Jackson said. "We've consistently seen click-through rates between 20 and 25 percent."

Mobile Posse typically places a banner ad at the top level of the screen, with multiple pay-off screens to drive awareness of the product or service.

"We're super-excited about rolling out with LCW," Mr. Jackson said. "This is something that's coming, it's an actual industry now, other carriers are getting on board and the future is bright."