Before mobile phones were smartphones, individual ring tones played a huge role. In the early 2000s, the German company Jamba started its ringtone empire. But how is the company doing today?
What initially appears as an annoying fringe phenomenon robs young people of their last nerve at the latest with the appearance of the “Crazy Frog”. The Jamba ringtone advertisement runs up to 150 times a day, primarily on the popular music channels MTV and Viva. What happened to the legendary Jamba savings subscription and can I still sign up for it today?
First of all: The Jamba brand is still alive, but has disappeared into oblivion. The focus is now on selling games for smartphones or more or less funny emoticons. The saver subscription is dead.
Why are ringtones booming?
When Jamba opened its doors in August 2000, the company had its finger on the pulse. The mobile phone is more and more on the rise, but still represents a kind of status symbol.
However, the mobile phones often only differ in the color of the housing. Back then, the screen didn’t shimmer in the brightest colors, but bored with pixelated motifs in black and white.
The factory-made, always the same ringtones of the mobile phone manufacturers cause confusion, because in a room full of people it is no longer clear which phone is being called. At that time, it was considered socially acceptable to let the call tone ring as loudly as possible. After all, the ringing of a mobile phone means, “Oops, someone is very important.”
In order to stand out from the crowd of standard ring tones with an individual touch, many mobile phone owners use the Jamba offer. In the beginning, the company held back with advertising.
Crazy Frog is from Sweden
Jamba was founded by the brothers Alexander, Marc and Oliver Samwer. Even in the early days of online trading, the three of them showed that they had a very good nose for worthwhile business ideas. The brothers later also invested in the German online mail order company Zalando and also held shares in the well-known online brands Delivery Hero, HelloFresh, Home24 and Westwing.
In 2003, the 3D animation of a frog wearing a motorcycle helmet and clearly showing its genitals appeared on the Internet. The virtual amphibian is initially called “The Annoying Thing” – translated: The annoying thing. Later, the animal is given the nickname “Crazy Frog” and is more annoying than ever.
The birthplace of the Crazy Frog is in Sweden, where a 17-year-old boy imitates the sound of a two-stroke engine with his mouth. The audio file ends up on the Internet via detours. Friends then create the 3D animation of the Crazy Frog to go with the noise.
In 2004, Jamba secured the exclusive rights to use the Crazy Frog for advertising purposes. From then on, the frog babbled on German TV screens from morning to night and advertised the Jamba savings subscription. Because the Crazy Frog does this in such an aggressive manner, complaints and lawsuits against this type of advertising are increasing in German courts.
In fact, Jamba was on the verge of legality at the time. While many young people want to own the funny ringtones, they ignore the fine print. As a result, many young cell phone owners end up in debt because they thought they were only paying to download a single ringtone. Instead, they had taken out an expensive subscription that is not so easy to cancel.
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Annoying hit parade striker
The Crazy Frog later leads an annoying life of its own outside of the advertising world. The frog stormed the charts with his Crazy Frog-style songs. The British band Coldplay was one of the most prominent haters of the annoying frog at the time. Because the Crazy Frog version of the classic “Axel F.” prevented the Coldplay song “Speed of Sound” from number 1 in the British charts in 2005.
In addition to the Crazy Frog, Jamba relies on other annoying characters such as Schnuffel, Mauli, the gummy bear or Sweety. A playlist of horror can also be found on Spotify.
The Samwer brothers separated from Jamba in 2004 and sold their ringtone empire to the US company VeriSign for 273 million US dollars. Because mobile phones have also improved in terms of sound, Jamba is increasingly disappearing from the public eye. With the advent of smartphones, the ringtones business model is dead.
If you visit the Jamba website today, you can still buy ring tones there. The range of products also extends to games, wallpapers, logos or emoticons. Particularly noteworthy: To this day, the Jamba website exudes the charm of the early 2000s.