Oh come on, give us a break here! Who seriously wants ads on their mobile phones? I have no issue with subscription content on my mobile, but please keep the ads to yourself.

Discovery Channel’s I Shouldn’t Be Alive profiles people who have survived some pretty unusual (and life-threatening) ordeals, from shipwrecks to snowstorms. It’s also relying on an unconventional way to hype the show: cell-phone marketing.

On the eve of the second season’s debut, Discovery Channel began offering prizes, free ringtones, and weekly trivia questions via short text messages(SMS) to subscribers of some of the country’s biggest mobile-phone companies — Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel (S), and T-Mobile.

So far, more than 15,000 people have signed up to receive SMS trivia and reminders to watch the show, and they are among its most loyal fans, says Julie Willis, senior vice-president for marketing at Discovery. “We are getting a lot bolder about mobile marketing,” she says. “This is something everybody should be doing.”

“THE MARKET HAS ARRIVED.” Many companies are heeding the advice. For years, fans of American Idol have been able to vote for contestants using SMS over the network of AT&T Wireless, now part of Cingular Wireless. Last year 12% of major U.S. brands, including McDonald’s (MCD), Coca-Cola (COKE), and American Express (AXP), spent dollars on mobile-phone marketing and advertising, says mobile marketing agency ipsh, whose 200 clients include Discovery Channel. The number may triple this year. Source: Business Week

[tags]sms,cell phone,cingular wireless,sprint nextel,american idol,discovery channel[/tags]