Smartone cruises with HTC

Hong Kong -  SmarTone-Vodafone has partnered with HTC to launch the Touch Cruise smartphone in Hong Kong with a digital campaign to roll out this week.

The new phone will support broadband speed internet surfing and downloads up to 7.2Mbps and SmarTone-Vodafone's subscribers could also watch videos on demand from popular sites such as tv.on.cc, Yahoo HK video, Youku and CNN.

Shirley Chung (pictured), general manager of customer relationship development at SmarTone-Vodafone, said the mobile operator decided to partner with the leading manufacturer of Windows Mobile to target fans of the HTC handset as well as net-savvy consumers looking for multimedia content.

Chung said a comprehensive print campaign will roll out in newspapers and magazines including a full range of digital executions via search engine marketing, online banners, seeding in forums with plans to launch a blogger event.

She said blogging has become increasingly important as people rely on word-of-mouth and "they like to exchange information and go to the internet". She added it is "a good opportunity to use a wide range of digital media".

Touch Cruise will allow users to share web content easily with one click to set up messages and emails to send to friends while RSS links on webpages could be automatically detected when browsing and accessed immediately via an on-screen toolbar.  

JWT Hong Kong is the creative agency and ZenithOptimedia handles media buying and planning for this campaign.