Branded mobile entertainment company PlayPhone Inc. has launched a wireless retailer program that provides wireless retailers, agents and resellers a way to merchandize, sell and monetize mobile content at the point of sale.

This new wireless agent program opens up PlayPhone's library of branded mobile entertainment content such as ringtones, games and video to wireless retail establishments and online resellers so that they can generate additional revenue streams.

"Initially we worked predominantly as an off-deck mobile consumer content company, but we morphed into a B2B company providing powered destination sites for companies like Best Buy and Walmart," said Jim Conti, vice president of carrier business for PlayPhone, San Jose, CA.

"We have a very close relationship with carriers," he said. "Off-deck and on-deck were always in competition, until operators said ?We don't care where the revenue comes from as long as they buy from us.'

"The wireless retailer program provides aggregated services, wireless channels, destination sites in malls and kiosks, helping our clients monetize the very things these consumers were requesting to buy."

PlayPhone supports all of the North American carriers.

PlayPhone gives consumers access to a new and exclusive media catalog spanning audio, video and gaming content from all four major music labels and their artists, game publishers and media companies such as Sony BMG, EMI, Disney, Vivendi and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

In addition to operating its consumer-facing mobile destination at PlayPhone.com, PlayPhone powers mobile content destinations and promotional offerings for entertainment and retail brands including Wal-Mart, BET Networks, ABC Television, National Geographic, Sony Pictures, SonyBMG, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Sega, Real Networks and iPlay.

Using this initiative, member agents will also be able to formulate and launch mobile content marketing campaigns, including using in-store and in-market exclusives for competitive advertisements, as well as educate the consumer at the point of sale for a far better user experience when downloading.

The entire program is optimized to reduce churn and gain a higher average revenue per user.

"The program is designed to be very easy to install and to make it easy for independent retailers to monetize mobile content," Mr. Conti said.

With PlayPhone's wireless retailer program, agents will be trained to ensure Mobile Marketing association compliance factors that result in increased consumer satisfaction while reducing customer complaints for both the retailer and the carrier partners.

By educating consumers at the point of sale using this program, PlayPhone hopes to show them how to maximize their download experience and help them set up their first ringtone right in the store.

Features of PlayPhone's wireless retailer program include in-store sales agent training, a dedicated agent hotline, in-store POP and POS materials, quick-start guides, in-box cards, branded customer care, free promotional content for new activations, exclusive content and promotional content and a first-ever market development fund to help drive adoption.

The introduction of the wireless retailer program addresses PlayPhone's effort to better the public's perception of off-deck mobile content marketing practices that, in the past, relied on affiliate-based marketing.

According to PlayPhone, this resulted in high churn, high refunds, low customer usage and high levels of customer care call volume.

PlayPhone is a global mobile media company present in more than 25 countries throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America that provides personalization and entertainment content to mobile consumers.

The company is funded by venture firms Menlo Ventures, Cardinal Venture Capital, Scale Venture Partners and Coral Capital Management.

PlayPhone recently struck a deal with Billing Revolution for mobile billing and credit card payment services designed to ease mobile commerce sales (see story).

PlayPhone designed its Wireless Retailer Program to include content like ringtones, wallpapers, video such as movie trailers and SMS-based horoscopes.

"We want to legitimize the ability of the consumer to get a quality mobile product at the POS, customize the handset with ringtones and a wallpaper, where agent actually educates the consumer how to download content without a lot of the deception involved in the direct-to-consumer space," Mr. Conti said.

"We address the challenge of monetizing mobile content in the retailer environment without the need of extensive integration into the POS and with customer care branded to each particular retailer," he said.

"We're addressing the very problem that retailers have never been able to answer in the past, monetizing additional services and capitalizing on relationships with operator partners to sell a customer an add-on," he said.