Cricket Communications Inc., a provider of unlimited wireless services, and LiveWire Mobile, a provider of managed mobile personalization services, have launched Mobile Music.

The platform lets Cricket customers download full-track songs directly to their wireless devices and/or personal computers. To kick-off the new Mobile Music offering, Cricket has partnered with Grammy-nominated artist and record producer Soulja Boy Tell 'Em for a multifaceted promotion featuring his new single "Kiss Me Thru the Phone."

"The strategy is to give our customers the ability to discover and download new music on the go," said Stephen Scott, Denver-based senior product manager of mobile entertainment and content for Cricket.

"Our take rates for mobile entertainment such as ringback tones and our Video Service are outpacing the industry, so we decided to follow it up and complete the portfolio with this full-track service," he said.

Cricket is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Leap Wireless International Inc.

Using the Cricket Mobile Music service, customers can search music content by artist, album, song and genre to purchase full tracks and download them directly to their Cricket phone for $1.99 each, or receive three download credits for a $5 monthly charge.

Songs are available online at http://www.mycricket.com for $.99 each and customers can use Cricket's Music Manager software to sideload the tracks to their mobile phone, or buy two copies of each song, one for their PC and one for their phone for $2.25 per song.

Through Feb. 14, ringback tone subscribers can get a limited license-free copy of Soulja Boy Tell 'Em's new single to be used for two weeks.

The first 100 customers to download the track each day during the promotion will receive it for free.

Customers will have a chance to enter an online contest to win one of 500 Samsung Jet Set handsets and a free month of Cricket service.

Additionally, ringback tone, Mobile Music and Mobile Video customers can enter a download-to-win contest, whereby each download or new subscription is a chance to win a trip for two to see Soulja Boy Tell 'Em in concert, along with an exclusive meet-and-greet.

"We've had a strategic partnership with Universal Music over the last several years, and they told us that Soulja Boy had a new track that they were going to drop on Valentine's Day, so we decided to run a promotion around it and really blow that out a lot bigger and provide a lot of excitement around it," Mr. Scott said.

Cricket's target demographic overlaps with Soulja Boy's core audience.

"Our target demographics overlay very nicely," Mr. Scott said. "If you look at who purchases mobile music, it ranges between 13 and 35, with 20-24 the sweet spot of customers highly engaged with mobile entertainment content services.

"Soulja Boy's target demographic is African Americans 30 and under, and Cricket over-indexes in those demographics," he said.

Nearly 50 percent of Cricket customers are under the age of 34 and 60 percent are either African American or Hispanic.

Cricket will send text messages to its customer base to get the word out about Mobile Music and the Soulja Boy promotion.

"We're hanging our hat on the Soulja Boy single as our flagship promotion at the launch of Mobile Music," Mr. Scott said. "We see it as an excellent opportunity to increase the excitement for our customers, as he was one of our top five selling artists across ringtones and ringback tones last year.

"His new single has already reached no. 2 on our list of most popular ringback tones," he said.

Cricket's marketing tactics also include in-store promotions, including 200 one-hour listening parties with free merchandise and in-store appearances by Soulja Boy featuring autograph signings and meet-and-greets.

On Cricket's deck, Soulja Boy is the featured artist, with banner ads consumers can click on to get to Soulja Boy content.

There is also a 'click here to learn more' icon that takes them to a specialty WAP page for the Soulja Boy campaign with links to various Cricket store fronts to purchase content.

Customers can sign up for Mobile Music over the air, online or at Cricket stores and dealers.

To experience Mobile Music, customers need a music-capable Cricket 3G handset, with an integrated music player and memory card.

Mobile Music is currently available on Cricket's 3G devices, including the Motorola ROKR, KRZR, SLVR and RZR2; and Samsung JetSet, r610 and r500.

Cricket offers consumers and local businesses flat-rate unlimited wireless service over all-digital CDMA2000 1X and 1xEV-DO wireless network.

Designed for customers whose basic and advanced wireless needs have not been met by traditional communications companies, Cricket has no long-term commitments or credit checks required.

Cricket offers customers access to a variety of the latest devices and mobile applications such as unlimited text, instant and picture messaging, mobile Web, games, ringtones and wallpapers.

Cricket services are offered by Leap Wireless International Inc., headquartered in San Diego, CA.

Cricket's Mobile Music service is fully managed by LiveWire Mobile.

LiveWire Mobile is a provider of managed personalization services for carriers.

LiveWire Mobile's integrated suite of music and video services includes ringback tones, ringtones and full-track downloads, as well as dedicated content and service marketing.

LiveWire Mobile helps operators drive service usage and adoption.

"LiveWire Mobile is providing a fully managed service for Cricket, form platform elements to achieve marketing services, managing promotions and chart of the service itself, storefronts for the WAP service and the PC store," said John Orlando, chief marketing officer for LiveWire Mobile, Boston.

"We're responsible for selecting the music, working with the Cricket team to put the right music out for their demographics," he said. "The over-the-air capability for subscribers to also buy via a PC media center adds a whole other element, like an iTunes, which gives subscribers to the option to enjoy the immediacy of over-the-air straight-to-mobile downloads or the ability to go to the Web store.

"We're excited by this Cricket launch, and we worked very hard to match the service to their demographics."