Virgin Mobile USA Inc., a provider of prepaid and postpaid wireless services, has announced its title sponsorship of the upcoming Britney Spears concert tour.

The tour, to be called "Virgin Mobile Presents the Circus Starring Britney Spears," features special guests The PussyCat Dolls. The circus-themed tour is due to kick off in New Orleans on March 3, with a planned 31 dates nationwide.

"We love to surprise and delight our customers and consumers in general," said Jayne Wallace, spokeswoman for Virgin Mobile USA, Warren, NJ. "This tour will obviously get tremendous attention, and we will benefit from that.

"Britney's appeal goes across all ages, just like our phones," she said. "And both of us -- Britney and Virgin Mobile -- in some way are at new beginnings; for us, as we launch postpaid as well.

"The tour also provides us wonderful opportunity to reach out to customers in local markets and create some fun applications within the concerts themselves."

As part of the sponsorship, some fans will have the chance to catch a sneak peek of the tour by attending Britney's final private dress rehearsal in New Orleans on March 2.

Virgin Mobile USA will also have VIP ticket giveaways for tour dates around the country.

The company is considering offering customers in key markets opportunities to win tickets via SMS, although no such program has been finalized.

The mobile virtual network operator is offering a "Circus" ringtone in conjunction with the campaign.

The core demographic that Virgin Mobile USA is trying reach probably comes as no surprise.

"We are a youthful brand, with a sweet spot of 18-34, but of course our customers range from nine to 90, as do Britney's fans!" Ms. Wallace said.

In conjunction with sponsorship of the "Circus" tour, Virgin Mobile USA plans to launch its new Ocean 2 multimedia device.

Select fans at the private show will be given an Ocean 2 to chronicle the event.

This "Ocean 2 Camera Crew" can blog, IM, email, post to social networking sites and send photos from this one mobile phone to share with friends and fans.

"The Ocean 2, coming out next month, is the flagship phone for our new postpaid offers, and will be prominently featured in upcoming marketing and advertising," Ms. Wallace said. "The phone was produced before the acquisition, so of course it says Helio on it.

"We are continuing our positioning of Helio By Virgin Mobile and Helio is Virgin Mobile," she said. "More information about the cool features -- that exist on Ocean 1 and that are new to Ocean 2 -- will be forthcoming next week."

Virgin Mobile USA will partner with Virgin Mobile Canada to extend Virgin Mobile's sponsorship to Britney's five scheduled shows north of the border.

Britney Spears has sold more than 83 million albums and grossed more than $350 million in ticket sales.

Now a mother, she stands at the threshold of a new chapter in her career.

On Dec. 2, 2008, Britney released her new album "Circus," which sold more than 500,000 copies in its first week of release and debuted at number one in the United States and five other countries.

To date, "Circus" has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.

AEG, a sports and entertainment presenter, is the promoter of the "Circus" tour.

Virgin Mobile USA offers Plans Without Annual Contracts and postpaid offerings through Helio By Virgin Mobile, with national coverage for both powered by the Sprint PCS network.

Virgin Mobile USA allows customers to earn free minutes in exchange for viewing advertising content online through the Sugar Mama program.

Virgin Mobile USA's handsets are available at approximately 40,000 retailers nationwide and online at http://www.virginmobileusa.com, with Top-Up cards available at more than 140,000 locations.

Helio's devices like the Ocean and unlimited all-in voice plans can be explored at http://www.helio.com.