• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, July 17, 2013

Psst, bud! Want to squeeze out a few more MB of data from your stingy carrier? Want to stream that episode of "Gossip Girl" without worrying about busting your monthly bandwidth budget? Here, Sparky. Just watch this. No, really, Chester -- it won’t hurt you. It’s just a little ad.

The idea of trading ad viewing for data bandwidth is nothing especially new. For as long as consumers have gotten sticker shock from their monthly bill, someone somewhere has floated this idea of rewarding people who viewed display or especially video ads on a phone with minutes, messages or more data on their plans. In fact, I recall years ago when an MVNO tried to launch that model aimed itself exclusively at college kids -- among the most price-sensitive demos imaginable. I am not sure the parade of pre-launch press releases ever resulted in an actual rollout. One of the early 3G MVNOs, Amp’d, didn’t trade ads for bandwidth -- but I recall that its very ad-friendly model was based on the notion that marketing was subsidizing the service. Amp’d, which did launch, fizzled and burned quickly.

Arguably, these models have had greater reception in some emerging markets where cellular accounts can be prohibitively expensive for some.

A new company, Aquto, takes its turn at the idea at just that moment in mobile evolution when subscribers may be finding their data eyes are bigger than their wallets. As 4G networks get us accustomed to lightning-fast multimedia delivery, I think more than a few people are discovering a data cap they never felt before.

Aquto proposes to make mobile data a currency that advertisers can offer consumers in exchange for ad exposure, if not genuine engagement. In app form, users with participating carriers can use the Kickbit app to take sponsored surveys, watch videos, try free downloads or shop and earn credits that ultimately are transferrable as credit to your data plan. The MoVE (Mobile Value Exchange) product essentially makes the model portable to other apps and games. The rewards are accrued and transferred to the user account for redemption as data.

The rub (two rubs, really) is that, as the company admits: “Unfortunately not all carriers and data plans are supported, yet. We're working hard on adding support for additional carriers and data plans constantly.” That is an understatement. Only one carrier has signed on publicly -- Vodafone in Europe. The company tells me that there will be U.S. carriers in August.

The other rub is whether rewarding people for engaging in marketing activity for a brand really does scale and become a meaningful model amidst alternatives. I feel as if I have written this story at least 15 times in over 15 years. Theoretically, the concept of the ad-for-something value exchange feels like it should work. Ask consumers. They often tell researchers they would be willing to trade some of their attention span for free access or stuff. But when it comes down to it, how many will do so on a consistent, self-conscious basis with a single provider? At what point does the abstract value exchange that advertising has always had (ads for content and access) become identifiable, quantifiable currency that people change behaviors to seek?

Yes, there are loads of great examples of ad paywalls, ad hoc ad views that people elect to watch to get another level of game play or a day pass to a premium site. Those models are great, I think -- and underscore the idea of the value exchange. The next leap -- turning attention into currency where people really are accruing rewards in a systematic way at scale, sustainably? I am not convinced any of them have grown beyond being interesting cul de sacs of select users who are willing to invest actual time in accruing rewards for the long haul. At last month’s OMMA Mobile show in New York, at least one panel raised the issue of rewards systems for watching ads, and everyone on that agency panel seemed to agree it was not a scalable, sustainable concept.

Aquto’s inherent argument is that whatever the previous failings of the ad-for-points model, this time it's different. Now people really are feeling the pain of high data bills and adjusting their behavior accordingly. They cite research that 66% of AT&T and Verizon customers said they were concerned about data limits on their plans, and that 63% “self-throttled” or deliberately curtailed usage to avoid overages. Perhaps the key, they imply, is that the rewards need to address a very specific pain point.     

This is the cue for at least ten startups in the app space to pile on and tell me the incredible results and success they have seen trading ads for redeemable rewards. Go ahead. I am eager to hear about how, where and with whom such a model works. Does it work best in a highly localized way, with very specific charitable rewards or immediate rewards rather than point collecting? And even then, what kind of scale are we seeing on a regular basis…beyond the interesting tests?  

Let’s see where this model stands.