Last week, we ran a piece outlining our misgivings about Turkish network Turkcells Tone & Win Ringback Tone (RBT) mobile advertising platform. Here, Turkcell Mobile Marketing & Advertising Division Head Melis Trkmen puts the case for the defence…

RBT is a high-value added service in Turkey compared to other European countries, in terms of subscriber penetration and revenue. Turkcell subscribers mostly use RBT or have the chance to listen to RBT when calling their friends. RBT is a 10 to 15-second slot of free space that an operator can use to generate revenue. So in Tone&Win, Turkcell is using this space for ad-funded content. It is not a space where Turkcell is putting out a 15-second radio spot and letting listeners hear our brand jingle. It is a space created for Tone&Win advertisers, including music and a brand message.
For example, in a Tone&Win campaign run by Whirlpool on Christmas Eve, listeners heard an actress wishing them a Merry Christmas, and more than 2,000 Tonics (Tone&Win members) set this entertaining jingle as an RBT for their mobile phones. Each time the member received an incoming call, the person calling them heard Whirlpools Merry Christmas greeting. The brand jingle was about 15 seconds long and consisted of a simple Christmas greeting.
And when Isbank, one of the biggest banks in Turkey, ran a Tone&Win campaign, their message was Hey you know what they say: A good year ends with a good start! So your friend hired me to send you his best wishes!
We are following popular Turkish blogs and forums and its really interesting that users are happy to listen to these kinds of advertisements instead of a regular ringing tone, and they know that their friends win credits or talk time for that. A 338% increase in monthly subscriber numbers to Tone&Win also proves that this growth is being  supported by word of mouth recommendation too.
And when it comes to the opt-in process for Tone&Win, according to telecom regulations, it is forbidden for us to analyze the caller information, so we cannot reach the callers for opt-in purposes. But we are working on a development that will give rewards and benefits to listeners, and this will launch very soon. That development will make it legitimate for us to reach listeners for opt-in/opt-out purposes.