SocialWise Inc. is launching a marketing campaign for its BillMyParents online payment system through social network sites in early August that could reach 4.6 million followers of Twitter, Facebook and Myspace, Jim Collas, Socialwise president and CEO, tells PaymentsSource.
The company announced its plans for the marketing initiative in April (
SocialWise is conducting the effort in conjunction with the social networking pages of extreme-sport athletes Rob Dyrdek, Travis Pastrana and Ryan Sheckler and their online followers. The athletes, most of whom participated in the recent X Games, will send messages and have posts on their pages promoting the BillMyParents payment option, says Collas.
Socialwise also expects the athletes to do fun viral videos that likely will end up on Youtube, he says. Viral videos are videos that get very popular online.
One of the athlete’s other viral videos generated 100 million views on Youtube, Collas notes. “These videos will give us a lot of brand exposure,” he says.
Socialwise introduced BillMyParents in April 2009, then tested it with focus groups before going live in May 2009. The service allows teens to shop online by having merchants e-mail parents their intended purchases for approval. Parents who use the service also may establish an online allowance for their children in advance of their purchases.
BillMyParents also offers an account linked to a prepaid MasterCard that enables parents to monitor how funds are spent.
The prepaid card has a $3.95 monthly maintenance fee and a $1.50 reloading fee.
The company announced in July that it has signed up 10,000 accounts through its relationships with youth online-gaming sites and retailers who promote the card by putting a payment button on their sites, including a deal with youth clothing store Pacific Sunwear, says Collas.
Socialwise also has said it will name three sports retailer partners this summer. Those retailers have more than $1 billion in annual sales and would generate 20 million impressions of the BillMyParents payment button a month, the San Diego-based company says (
Socialwise is making progress in targeting youths, but the company still needs to attract parents to the product, one analyst says.
“The question is, how much demand is going to be from the ground up versus the top down?” says Ron Shevlin, an analyst with Boston-based Aite Group. “It’s more likely that the parents say to the teens that they need to be more conscientious about spending and give them the tools to do it. There needs to be more of an educational-type of marketing to the parents.”
Socialwise has yet to announce whether it plans to market the product to parents.
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