Letting consumers choose their own (vanity) phone number

If consumers will pay extra to choose their own license plate number—or to customize their own notebooks, fabrics and sneakers, for that matter—it stands to reason they’d probably do the same for an opportunity to select their own mobile phone number as well. Sure enough, Name Your Number is a UK-based service that works with mobile operators to bring custom numbers to users with mobile phones. Name Your Number works in any country, language or culture to give mobile phone users a choice of numbers for their device. Telefonica, Vodafone, France Telecom and Deutsche Telecom are all among its current customers. Accordingly, for an additional fee, subscribers to those companies’ services in select locations can choose their own phone numbers based on existing phone numbers, important dates, lucky numbers or alphanumeric matches to a significant word. Vodafone customers in Romania, for instance, must pay between EUR 10 and EUR 200 for the service. Additional benefits for operators, meanwhile, include improved differentiation and retention, according to NYN. Between gravanity and the customization trend, there doesn’t seem to be any end to consumers’ hunger for personalization. Other mobile operators: what about you? Spotted by: Attiq Qureshi