News 2002

Can you pass the house price challenge?

30/08/2002

Make a move to Virgin Mobile

So you think you know your bungalows from your bachelor pads? Know what a wigwam in Wolverhampton’s worth, or the price of a penthouse in Penrith? With house values rising at an astonishing rate, Virgin Mobile helps you assess how much you really know about the property ladder and how to climb it.

Virgin Mobile unveils a new direct marketing campaign this week, targeted at estate agents around the UK, which capitalises on the nation’s obsession with house prices.

The electronic campaign is a game: the House Price Challenge. Players who correctly guess the market value of the game’s featured properties are entered into a prize draw to win a state-of-the-art T68I handset from Sony Ericsson with a communicam attachment – and lots of booze to celebrate their win! Runners up also win a shed load of booze to drown their sorrows at not being the hottest property spotter in the house.

Designed by Liquid, the campaign is being sent via email to an initial list of 7,000 estate agents, and will filter out virally to a wider audience via the ‘challenge a friend’ element of the game. Estate agents were consulted in the construction of the game to ensure the content was accurate and appealing to people in the industry.

The estate agent community has been targeted as an example of how small businesses can benefit from Virgin Mobile’s services. Virgin Mobile understands that SMEs with up to ten members of staff need flexibility from their mobile services provider. The Virgin Mobile proposition, with group billing, no line rental, no contracts to sign and no penalties for unused minutes, means that companies can use their mobiles as and when they need them, rather than being tied into a prohibitive deal.

Steven Day of Virgin Mobile says: “We think this campaign will help us to get our message across in a fun way; we’re simply saying to estate agents: move to Virgin Mobile and be better off!”

If you haven’t received your copy of the Virgin Mobile House Price Challenge, you can access the game at www.housepricechallenge.co.uk.

The benefits that Virgin Mobile offers to SMEs include:

Helping reduce costs:

No line rental - Customers pay only for the calls they make

Cheap calls when businesses need them most – Virgin Mobile charges 15p a minute for the first five minutes of calls each day, 5p a minute after that – for up to 23 hours and 55 minutes every day!

Free voicemail - small businessmen and women need never miss calls from clients or customers – and it won’t cost them a penny to pick up their messages

Keeping in touch with international business contacts is easier – calls to destinations as far away as New Zealand and Australia are cheap at just 20p a minute for example (that’s cheaper than BT’s cheapest landline rate).

The best mobile customer service:

Free itemised bills - customers can see when and to whom they made their calls

Group billing – for up to ten users on one account

Virgin Mobile will help customers switch from their existing network - a dedicated team will help customers switch and even bring their numbers with them – call our small business team on 0845 6000 809 24 hours a day

Reaping the Virgin Mobile rewards

The Big Bonus, rewarding big talkers with ‘cashback’ – Every month, any user spending £30 or more, will receive 10% of the value of their calls credited back in airtime to their account.

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