Celebrity Phone-Ins: How Charities Can Benefit From Premium Conferencing
Celebrity sells and no one knows that better than hardpressed charities. The economy might be in the doldrums but the public’s voracious appetite for all things celebrity remains as strong as ever.
Wouldn’t it be nice therefore if a forum existed that allowed celebrities to chat on the phone directly with their fans and raise money for a worthy cause in the process? Well now thanks to premium conferencing they can.
As the name suggests premium conferencing is powered by premiumrate numbers which have been key revenue generators for the media in recent years. The prize money on offer on shows like ‘who wants to be a millionaire?’ is typically raised by such numbers.
Here’s how it works: the celebrity decides a time and date in the future when they will be available for the event which can be hosted anywhere with internet access and a phone.
The event is then marketed both on and offline as an opportunity for fans to call for a chance of speaking directly with the celebrity the conference host and raise money for the celebrity’s favourite charity in the process.
When the time arrives the host dials in on an 800 number whilst all conference participants dial in on a premium rate one. These typically begin with the ’09′ prefix and are charged at a higher rate which is collected by the subscribers’ phone company. When employed in a fundraising capacity some or all of the accrued revenues can be paid to the hosts’ chosen charity.
Callers that wish to speak to the host are placed in a queue which the host can then monitor and control in realtime on the web. If the celebrity in question prefers they can engage in the services of a trusted intermediary to act as a moderator for such an event. Needless to say the CLI of the host is suppressed so callers will be unaware of the host’s location when the event takes place.
Premium conferencing therefore is the ideal vehicle for celebrities to hold QA sessions with their loyal army of admirers and meet three key needs at once: raise money for the chosen charity deliver a ‘reality’ event to an audience obsessed with both reality and celebrity and depending on how the host interacts directly with their fans good PR for both them and indeed the premium rate industry as a whole.
Furthermore celebrities have worldwide appeal: thanks the worldwide reach on the web and the underlying international telephony infrastructure which acts as its veins such phone events can be marketed to an eager global audience: Participants dial in on a local premium rate number in those countries that support them or make a regular international Direct Dial IDD call in those that do not.
A caller from India therefore calls Liechtenstein for a chance to speak to the host who is in say the USA premium conferencing is globalisation alive and kickin’!
As with twitter eBay amp; Co such technology simply facilitates the enduser experience which is generated by the users : so called User Generated Content UGC : The success or otherwise of such phone events will in large part rest on the shoulders of the host the ‘star of the show’ and how they interact with their audience.
Premium conferencing is essentially a hybrid of the latest web and conferencing technology coupled with a proven billing mechanism an excellent example of the ongoing convergence and bundling of existing products that make premium conferencing possible.
One thing is for sure: premium conferencing will certainly give a celebrity obessed public something new to talk about “You’ll never guess who I was chatting with last night . . . ” could be heard more often.
About the writer: Marc has been a consultant in the paypercall industry since 1994.
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