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Have Trouble Hearing High-Pitched Frequencies? This Mobile Ad App Isn’t For You

Talk about youth-targeted marketing. Fanta, the fruit-flavored soft-drink brand owned by Coca-Cola, is launching a mobile application in the UK based on technology that only people under 20 can hear. The application, the Fanta Stealth Sound System, uses the same technology first used rather controversially in Britain to discourage “yoot” from loitering outside of shops and bus shelters. Like the Mosquito “teen repellent”, Fanta’s mobile app uses high-pitched frequencies that generally those over 20 can’t hear.

Ogilvy Advertising used the technology to create a language of sounds that lets teenagers communicate with one another. Sounds such as wolf whistles, “pssts,” and warnings are tagged to words or phrases such as “cool,” “uncool” and “let’s get out of here.” Ogilvy’s digital strategy director Giles Rhys Jones writes in his blog that the application was played throughout a presentation he made to the Ogilvy board. He writes, “And yes, despite the prevalence of ironic t-shirts, difficult glasses and trainers hinting at at least a desire to recapture their youth, no one noticed. Not even me.” Fanta is also rolling out a second mobile app—Virtual Tennis—that allows two mobile phones to connect via Bluetooth for a match. The apps are to launch early next year, and will be supported by on-pack, in-store, print, viral and online ads, reports NMA.co.uk.

Dec 2, 2008 6:01 AM ET

Posted In: Advertising, Countries, Europe, UK, ogilvy

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Dec 2, 2008 3:10 PM

Welcome to 2006, this has been done a few times.

Special K

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