Watch Ads and Earn Cellphone Minutes

Virgin Mobile USA plans to announce a program called SugarMama, that lets people earn one minute of talking time by watching 30-second commercials on a computer or receiving text messages on their phones, then answering questions to prove they were, in fact, paying attention.

Howard Handler, chief marketing officer for Virgin Mobile USA, described SugarMama as “someone who shows up and gives you some extra gratification and gets you over the hump” when you are running low on talk time.

The program, which is the first ad supported cellphone service in the US, is scheduled to be launched on June 14 with
Virgin signing three advertisers: Pepsi, Microsoft’s Xbox game console and a youth antismoking campaign called Truth.
Those who want to try SugarMama can visit the Virgin Web site to sign up. They must then agree to take part in one of three ways: by watching short video clips online, filling out questionnaires or receiving text messages on their phones.

[ Virgin Mobile SugarMama via The New York Times ]