• by Karl Greenberg , August 17, 2007

Virgin Mobile USA, which markets to younger consumers with a no-annual-contract model, is rolling out the first fruit of a handset deal with LG Electronics (LGE), the U.S. arm of Korean electronics giant LG.

Virgin, which recently ran a campaign putting geographically specific outdoor ads in neighborhoods around NYC, is aiming the handset at younger consumers and will promote the clam-shell-style phone called Aloha with POP and merchandising campaigns.

The phone, which hits shelves and the web in September at $35, plays music and has animated ringtones and comes with speakerphone and voice-activated dialing. There are also preloaded games that can be switched out or augmented from a downloadable game site.

A Virgin Mobile spokesperson said that, besides a large retail push, dedicated marketing support for the Aloha includes a series of magazine ads highlighting the new handset and the inclusion of the phone "in our very high-profile National Youth Homelessness Awareness Month events in November."

The latter refers to a corporate goodwill effort with LGE aimed at homeless youth, called RE*Generation. As part of that program, Virgin Mobile has signed visual artists to create signature versions of the Aloha phones which will then be auctioned off in November.

The spokesperson says that on its heels of Aloha will be an enhanced version of the mid-range candy bar phone "Slice" which was introduced last year.

In March this year Virgin Mobile USA, which is carried over Sprint PCS' network, and claims more than 4.8 million customers, inked a deal with Yahoo. The same month, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.-based LG Electronics did a deal with Google. The former lets handset owners with Virgin Mobile service download Yahoo Mail and Messenger onto phones.

The next phase of the deal has those apps preloaded on Virgin Mobile phones. LG's deal with Google is similar, offering Google apps on LGE handsets, with phones offering things like Google search, Maps, Gmail and Blogger. The company has said it plans 10 new handsets this year with Google applications.

The Virgin Mobile spokesperson confirmed that Google mobile applications are available for Aloha and other Virgin XL-capable phones initially via WAP (mobile web surfing and download).