Ghana’s leading Telecommunications Company, MTN, has created an innovative channel of advertising for its subscribers known as MTN Mobile Advertising service. A statement from MTN said the service is designed to enable advertisers target their customers in a more defined and measurable manner using mobile devices. Customers on the other hand receive information, offers, promos and other exciting news about stuff they are interested in, such as media, automobiles, banks, and housing, building materials, hotels, restaurants, household items, grocery, agriculture, sports, fashion, health and many more. The MTN Mobile Advertising Service delivers advertisements in many formats including Text Messages, Interactive Messaging, Mobile Internet, and Rich Media including such as video, sound, picture and animations, Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) and Ring back Tunes. “Most of these formats are compatible with the basic mobile phone thus increasing the advertiser’s reach,” the statement said. The statement quoted the Chief Marketing Officer of MTN, Mr. Rahul De as saying “the mobile phone has become an integral part of the lives of many people. It is therefore important that as service providers, we make the mobile device a one- stop- shop for the user. It is for this reason that we at MTN have developed the Mobile Advertising service as a tool for connecting businesses and their potential clients.” He said MTN believes in providing converged telecommunications solutions to its subscribers as it continues to develop products and services that will meet customer needs. The new service comes to add to others such as MTN Mobile Money Bill Payment Service, 1188 Directory Service, MTN Vehicle Tracking Service, MTN Audio Conferencing Service and many others. The statement said customers could subscribe to the MTN Mobile Advertising service at zero cost by dialing the short code 525 and following the voice prompts. Customers could also use *525# or send “start” to 525 to access the service. “For each successful registration, the customer will be rewarded with five minutes free airtime in their MTN Bonus account. Adverts will then be sent to the customer depending on the options they selected in their profile,” the statement said. It said corporate organizations, businesses and other service providers could register to advertise their products on MTN Mobile Advertising platform by sending their details to adverts@mtn.com.gh.