• by Wendy Davis , March 15, 2005

Later this year, Hachette Filipacchi's teen magazine ELLEgirl will join the growing roster of publications to offer advertisers the ability to reach readers via mobile phone, the company stated Monday. Technology company Mobot, based in Waltham, Mass., will power the initiative.

The program will go into a soft launch in the May issue, with an invitation to ELLEgirl readers to register for the service. If all goes as planned, by the second half of this year, readers will be able to use their camera phones to take photos of any ads they're interested in, send in the photos to Mobot, and receive back promotions or information, such as locations where the products are sold, coupons, or free sample offers.

"We really do believe that this generation of very tech-savvy older teens is like no other generation. We got involved because the camera phone is so much a part of their lives," said ELLEgirl Vice President and Publisher Deborah Burns. "For a girl, it's all about the camera phone, and all about pictures," she said.

She added that ELLEgirl might also offer readers the chance to interact with editorial pages through camera phone. For instance, she said, readers might in the future enter contests, or take polls, by sending in pictures of the hard copies of those pages.

The magazine is still lining up participating advertisers, said Burns. "We have, right now, many custom proposals tailored to advertisers out there on the table, and presenting sponsorships on the table," she said. Burns anticipates that the magazine will charge advertisers extra to participate in the program. "The program is really too big to be added-value," said Burns. The median age of ELLEgirl's readers is 17; the circulation rate base will increase from the current 500,000 to 600,000 in the second half of the year, Burns said.

Jane magazine also offered readers the information-via-camera-phone deal for two issues last year--September and December--while Vibe magazine and Vibe Vixen did something similar in March.

Kevin Wells, vice president of business development at Mobot, said that 1 percent of Jane's readers registered for the service last year.