Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Mobile Marketing Via SMS

From The Feature Mobile marketing starting to take off.

Mobile marketing is finally starting to get the stamp of approval from the media commercial world its practitioners have so long craved, as the use of SMS response mechanisms to traditional ads grows.

The UK's Channel 4, Virgin Radio and Capital FM have all separately announced ventures offering essentially the same concept: their media sales teams are now to offer advertisers and agencies the ability to have an SMS response mechanism within their standard TV or radio ads. So, for instance, an advert for a Nivea beauty product encouraged listeners to text 'nivea' to an SMS shortcode number to receive a free sample.

By texting the code, you're giving Nivea permission to market to you.

The ability of mobile to turn relatively static media into interactive ones has long been the message pushed by the specialist mobile marketing agencies. The recent moves by some of the UK's biggest media companies show how the mainstream media world is finally formally embracing

One of key the messages to advertisers is that mobile can finally make mass-market media accountable, letting advertisers know exactly which part of their multi-million pound cross-media campaigns are most effective.

"This is a way of marking airtime accountable," says Virgin Radio business development director Chris Goldson. "We can begin to see if there are certain times of the day that generate most responses."

WAP usage may still be rising in the UK, but brands have been slow to adopt the medium in marketing campaigns. Many believe this is starting to change. As brands accept SMS as a standard response mechanic in advertising, and use WAP to offer compelling content in exchange for starting a relationship with consumers, this can surely only grow the medium as a whole.

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