Cingular considers widgets

Not to be outdone by other mobile platforms, Cingular is toying with the idea of widget advertising. The mobile provider is teaming up with Freewebs, a multimedia advertising and publishing platform, for a new multi-faceted ad campaign.

by Kristina Knight

With a combination of ringtones, widgets and content, the campaign promising to connect users with their favorite musical artists, allowing them to include artist songs, lyrics and their own content on other webpages through widgets. Freewebs users can link to the Cingular Sounds landing page, download ringtones and even rewrite their favorite lyrics. They can also post personal videos to be hosted on the Freewebs home page. Users can also take the widgets they create with them.

Both companies use banner ads to drive traffic to the websites.

This type of non-advertising advertising campaign is growing in popularity. Freewebs has completed similar campaigns with Adidas, Reebok and Sony.

Widgets have been around for years on the web, but using them for advertising purposes is a fairly new endeavor. Many advertisers have been reluctant to try to the embedded content generators because users can use and remove as they want. However, with content being the latest craze, widgets are the obvious choice for advertisers.