Fox Mobile Group’s on-demand mobile TV subscription service Bitbop is running a contest giving participants the opportunity to solve a mystery for a chance to win a BlackBerry Bold 9700 and a three-month subscription to Bitbop.

Each day for seven days, one “sharp sleuth” will win. The contest began on Sept. 8 and runs through Sept. 15.

“Bitbop is ramping up a very robust social media strategy,” said Lillie Green, of Marketing at Fox Mobile Group, Beverly Hills, CA. “It is a new, fun, sexy product that people want to talk about and share with their friends, so it has done well in social media channels even at an early stage.

“For the contest, we wanted people to learn about why Bitbop is so fun and useful,” she said. “We created a fun, engaging game that also told the Bitbop story, and we incorporated members of the team, TV shows and locations where people can watch Bitbop.

“Plus the Bitbop Mystery Contest is actually fun.”

A division of News Corp.’s Digital Media Group, Fox Mobile Group (FMG) specializes in mobile content distribution, production and services, offering mobile entertainment to consumers and business partners.

Bitbop is a new wireless subscription service delivering on-demand mobile TV directly to U.S. consumers’ smartphones.

Bitbop’s service is accessible from any 3G or wireless network and features unlimited streaming or temporary downloading of selected content from its partners.

Bitbop also has a mobile Web site at http://m.bitbop.com.

Bitbop till you drop
Bitbop’s target demographic is men and women ages 25-50 who are tech-forward smartphone-owners and early-adopters interested in media and entertainment.

The Bitbop mystery contest is loosely based on a classic detective board game where participants are given clues and must solve the mystery.

Five members of the Bitbop team are “suspects” who could be watching one of five TV shows in one of five locations.

Three different clues are given each day via the Bitbop Facebook page and Twitter to help players solve the mystery.

The first person to correctly identify which suspect is using Bitbop, what TV show they are watching and where they are will win the prize for the day.

U.S. residents 18 and older can enter the contest each day, but cannot enter more than once per day.

Participants in the Bitbop mystery contest do not need to be subscribers to the Bitbop service to participate.

Bitbop is $9.99 per month for unlimited use and it is commercial-free. Consumers can get a seven-day free trial when they sign up, so they can try it out before committing to the service.

“We are spreading the word through emails, blogs, forums and, of course, social media channels,” Ms. Green said. “This is a social media contest and we really want to leverage as many touch points as we can through Facebook and Twitter.”

Final Take