Los Angeles, CA and Newark, NJ (Aug. 19, 2004) - Pocket Billboards and IDT Corporation today announced the launch of a telephone calling card based advertising program. The program places print advertising on IDT pre-paid calling cards and features interactive audio messages that are linked to the calling card's voice prompt directions. Pocket Billboards is a media company that uses calling cards as an advertising and marketing medium. IDT Telecom is a subsidiary of IDT Corporation (NYSE: IDT, IDT.C), an international telecom, entertainment and technology company.
Pocket Billboards markets the advertising program, while IDT, the U.S. market leader in phone cards, is responsible for the manufacture and distribution of the cards. The advertising program features "true metering technology," an advanced measurement system that verifies the exact time of each audio impression.
"Pocket Billboards provides clients with an advertising solution that delivers print and audio impressions with track-ability," said Mendel Tropper, CEO of Pocket Billboards. "Not only do advertisers get their full color brand message on the calling card, a portable billboard consumers carry for weeks, but they also get interactive audio ads consumers hear every time they make a phone call."
More than 30% of U.S. calling card users are between the ages of 18-34 and a staggering 75% are under 49. Hispanic consumers represent well over 50% of all U.S. phone card users. IDT sells more than 18 million phone cards a month at more than 200,000 retail locations nationwide. More than half of IDT's pre-paid phone card customers are Hispanic.
"IDT phone cards are a trusted communication medium used regularly by millions of Hispanic consumers," said Steven Posen, President of Pocket Billboards. "Working closely with IDT means that Pocket Billboards can provide its clients with a new and effective way to reach the rapidly expanding, hard-to-reach Latino consumers as well as other specialty markets."
The Pocket Billboards program is currently available in 8 of the top 10 U.S. markets, and 8 out of the top 10 U.S. Hispanic markets. The highly-customizable system can be targeted to reach consumers in a variety of languages and geographic locations, on a local, regional or national basis.
Charter advertisers include motion picture studios, television broadcasters and other national brand marketers.
About Pocket Billboards
Pocket Billboards is an innovative media company that specializes in the use of calling cards for advertising and marketing. The company's products feature interactive audio messages linked to the calling card's voice prompt directions. Pocket Billboards delivers each purchased impression, and provides its clients with accurate and timely information through its true-metering technology based on actual card activations and detailed call usage data. Founded by Steven Posen and Mendel Tropper, the privately held company is based in Studio City, CA. On the Web: www.pocket-billboards.com.
IDT Corporation, through its IDT Telecom subsidiary, is a facilities-based, multinational carrier that provides a broad range of telecommunications services to retail and wholesale customers worldwide. IDT Telecom, by means of its own national telecommunications backbone and fiber optic network infrastructure, provides its customers with integrated and competitively priced international and domestic long distance and domestic all-distance telephony and prepaid calling cards. IDT Entertainment is the IDT subsidiary focused on developing, acquiring, producing and distributing computer-generated and traditionally animated productions and other productions for the film, broadcast and direct-to-consumer markets. Menlo Park is the IDT division principally responsible for the Company's initiatives in radio broadcasting, brochure distribution and new video technologies. Winstar Holdings, LLC, which provides service under the IDT Solutions brand, is the IDT subsidiary focused on providing broadband and telephony services to commercial and governmental customers through a fixed-wireless and fiber infrastructure. Net2Phone, Inc., a subsidiary of IDT Corporation, is a leading provider of high-quality global retail Voice over IP services and offers a fully outsourced cable telephony service to cable operators allowing cable operators to provide residential phone service to their subscribers.
IDT Corporation's Class B Common Stock and Common Stock trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols IDT and IDT.C, respectively.
Important Note: In this press release, all statements that are not purely about historical facts, including, but not limited to, those include the words "believe," "anticipate," "expect," "plan," "intend," "estimate," "target" and similar expressions, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these forward-looking statements represent IDT's current judgment of what may happen in the future, actual results may differ materially from the results expressed or implied by these statements due to numerous important factors, including, but not limited to, those described in IDT's most recent report on SEC Form 10-K (under the heading "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations"), which may be revised or supplemented in subsequent reports on SEC Forms 10-Q and 8-K and other filings IDT may make with the SEC.
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