Ericsson today announced a contract with Swedish television format company Bringiton AB to provide its Internet Payment Exchange (IPX) service to the Chinese television series "Big Time Spender" which Bringiton CL has co-developed with China Entertainment Television (CETV), one of the largest broadcasters in the nation.

Ericsson will provide CM Bringiton with interactive services via premium SMS thereby enabling one of the largest broadcasters in the nation to offer millions of consumers a way to interact with a large amount of brands in an entertaining and distinctly Chinese way.  "Big Time Spender," a reality competition focused on shopping, is currently in pre-production.

The series is a character-driven competition fueled by strategy, relationships and smart shopping.  Contestants shop their way across SS China towards their ultimate goal - the chance to live out the fantasy of spending one million dollars in Hong Kong in a single day...

According to a recent McKinsey report, sales in China's luxury market alone hit $2 billion in 2004, making it the world's third-largest consumer of luxury goods, after Japan and the U.S.  Other research, featured in Ogilvy's MS "Discovery and Mindshare Insights," indicates that the Chinese are not easily persuaded about the validity of brands based on traditional advertising, suggesting the necessity for platforms such as brand-integrated entertainment.

"We're starting to work with advertisers to co-develop content in order to seamlessly integrate brands into the episodes, which is somewhat easier in this case due to the show's shopping competition format," explains Martin Gisselman, CEO for Bringiton.  "Ericsson's IPX solution is an excellent choice for broadcasters wishing to provide multimedia services. It makes it possible for television audiences to access interactive services using any mobile phone and any carrier."

"Ericsson sees the show's format as a perfect fit for our mobile payment services.  Its interactive content gives Chinese television viewers a fantastic opportunity to interact with broadcasting in a whole new way, while living out their shopping fantasies," says Måns Burman, Regional Manager, Ericsson IPX, Asia.  "Ericsson is enabling a myriad of Mobile and Web-based competitions, chat, SMS voting and live events which allow all of CETV's viewers to take part in this experience."

Ericsson IPX is a non-branded service that provides mobile billing and connectivity for content via SMS, MMS, WEB and WAP, through one single interface. The premium service, IPX Payment, provides delivery and charging for Content Providers - to more than ONE billion mobile subscribers across networks in 23 countries and regions, and new markets are being added continuously.  With the non-premium service, IPX Messaging, content providers can deliver to and receive SMS messages from mobile subscribers worldwide.

Bringiton is a Swedish company whose activities focus on creating premium intellectual property and subsequent business models for multi-media properties. These "properties" are commonly referred to as "Formats" and are sold to leading broadcasters, where Bringiton retains the rights. Our media properties can be experienced not only through television but also through other media delivery channels (platforms) including mobile, radio, Internet, gaming and print. Read more at www.bringiton.se