Ad News
1 July 2005
By Andrea Sophocleous
SYDNEY: He’s been lobbying for the release of phone name numbers for seven years and Jack Singleton is confident advertisers will jump on the bandwagon.
His company, Phone Name Marketing (PNM), has spent millions buying phone name numbers – 1300 FLOWERS for example – and will act as a licensing agent, leasing the numbers to advertisers wanting a better response to their advertising.
“If you’re using a phone number [in your advertising], you’re ripping up most of your dollars.” Singleton said.
Singleton has taken a back seat at his advertising agency, Jack Watts Currie, to concentrate on building PNM – a separate company. He began working on the venture in 1996, and has been lobbying the Australian Communications Authority to release 1300 and 1800 numbers since 1998 – the authority owned 90% of potential phone name numbers until September last year.
A number of blue-chip advertisers are already using phone names, among them Foxtel, Qantas, Hilton Hotels and Aussie. However, the practise is much more widespread in the US.
Research by PNM has shown phone names increase advertising response rates. “On average, a phone name will increase response rates to advertising by 300%,” Singleton claimed.