Freebie offers you 2 minutes of free calls in exchange for listening to ads

With a population of 66 million, Thailand has 90 million mobile subscriptions, which means its mobile penetration rate exceeds its population. As a result, many companies want a piece of the pie in this growing market.

One new entrant is Freebie, which offers free minutes on phone calls for people who opt in to listen to adverts. Partnering with Thai telco AIS, Freebie’s customers can dial *115 to listen to voice ad in exchange for two minutes of free calling.

According to Nawanut Lorkitiyakul, Freebie’s CMO, subscribers tend to be students or first jobbers across all socio-economic backgrounds, and they reside in the greater Bangkok area.

It’s a similar idea to AdLatte, a Korea-made service that launched in Thailand last year. AdLatte gets people to watch ads on their mobile in exchange for a variety of rewards.

Freebie was launched last October. The platform reached 200,000 subscribers after three months. There were over 100,000 ad views daily by the end of 2013. So far the service has pulled in 15 to 20 brands, including ones involved in banking and food/drink sales.

For brands who use this service, it’s a chance to get exposure to Freebie users who opt to listen to the ads. Those ads can be specifically targeted by demographic. At the same time, Freebie’s customers get two minutes free calls just for listening to the commercials provided by the brands.

This demo video (in Thai) shows how it works:

(Editing by Steven Millward)