Friday, January 28, 2005

Great Idea, Bad Execution

Text messaging voting for Super Bowl ads.

From RCR News Cell-phone users to vote for favorite Super Bowl ads .

DULLES, Va.-Football fans can vote for their favorite commercials with their mobile phones with a service announced this week by American Online Inc.

Users can register for the poll by texting the word "vote" to short code 46265 before the game and will receive reminders during the Feb. 6 matchup. Each vote costs users 50 cents, and results will be announced the day after the game.

This could be a great marketing tool for AOL, (and they sure do need one), but they miss the whole point of this.

So I have to pay .50 to vote for an ad? What do I get for this? Gimme a free supply of Doritos, or a free Whopper.

Why should I pay for YOUR work?

How about making a game of texting to guess how many points New England scores each quarter. Number of punts in the first half. Who wins the coin toss.

The winner gets 1 month free AOL service, or a free Whopper..maybe even a signed picture of Janet Jackson. But you have to provide an incentive.

There are endless contests, bets you can make to have a great interactive text messaging campaign. What HAS to happen is for the user to get something for his .50.

Make the texting free for the game just to get people accustomed to using the SMS process. It will be a great investment.

Here's ANOTHER example of how mobile marketing could get started in the US but the marketing guys fail to consider the end users wishes. I hope this isn't a sign of how they will treat the user once they do get permission.


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