From ads to ringtones, everything to make your cell phone happy

There is a new GoGo in town; and no, it has nothing to do with the irreplaceable Gogo Lounge. I am talking about the GoGo brand emerging from the mist of cyberspace to take Montreal over. In less than two months, we have been introduced to GogoPoints.com and GogoTones.com. The first is a site allowing you to sign up to text messaging advertisement campaigns for your cell phone. You fully control the ads you receive, their timing and number. GogoPoints allows its members to partake in truly opt-in advertisement campaigns. GogoTones provides pretty much all the little extras and perks that you might want for your cell phone, in the likes of backgrounds, cell phone ringtones (you know these annoying Britney tunes that somehow got to your friends cell phone) and latest 8-bit phone games.

Advertisement has reached such an overwhelmingly intrusive level that it is present in pretty much every aspect of our lives. You can't take a leak without being subjected to an ad convincing you how that new car is going to make you so much cooler (is if that was impossible) and will get you that hot chick with the meter long legs (I have personally never seen her live, but accordingly to the ads, she exists). And unfortunately no one has ever requested our permission to bombard us with advertisement. Marketers seem to consider it to be their god-given right to enlighten us with lame and repetitive messages.

All babes have cell phones
with cool ringtones

Well this sad state of affairs is about to change, thanks to the few good things coming out of the digital age. A partial transfer of power from the marketers' hands to the general consumer seems to be underway. New technologies provide us the power to ignore ads, and thus choose which ones we want to see, giving rise to the first opt-in ad campaigns. GogoPoints is a perfect example of this new marketing trend, and is definitely not the only one. In the US, TiVo is revolutioning the world of network TV (and by revolutioning, I mean completely destroying it) as the TiVo box allows viewers to completely skip the ads. Surveys show that this is exactly what happens; people are fed up with brain-numbing ads and avoid them like the plague.

Are we finally going to witness a true revolution in the marketing world? Maybe not a drastic one, but GogoPoints sure is a step in the right direction. On top of it, if you sign up before the 10th of December, you might win some bling-bling, an iPod or a trip, something TV stations and radios never offer for simply listening to their crappy ads all day long. You always have to be caller number nine, or guess some obscure movie trivia, or discover all three secret hints by remaining glued to the TV morning noon and night, or…, basically do something lame.