The majority of mobile-phone owners will have received a commercial SMS message in the past few years. Not surprisingly, such communications have not always been welcomed.
SMS - and its successor MMS, which includes colour and images - were once heralded as a marketer's dream, offering the chance to connect with consumers on a one-to-one basis and deliver highly targeted messages. But mobile messaging has never really taken off as a marketing tool.
Mobile agencies are still keen to stress the benefits of mobile messaging, such as the medium's extensive reach, as proof it can be an effective marketing channel - there are more devices than people in the UK. Yet advertiser enthusiasm remains lacking.
'There are many fun and useful ways of using SMS,' says Jeremy Wright, co-founder of Enpocket. 'But it is not creatively rich, so media agencies don't see how it can add value and so they have not been pushing it as a viable medium.'
Enpocket works with bookmakers William Hill and Ladbrokes, sending out tips to punters who have subscribed to their services. It claims this works because it reaches people who have opted in, at a relevant time and with a valued message.
According to Wright, most brands don't see a need to carry out one-to-one marketing communications on any other basis than tactically around certain promotions. Text-to-win initiatives are common among FMCG companies, with on-pack space used to advertise free promotions, but few brands seem willing to try anything more than this.Even the arrival of MMS and the richer graphics, video and sounds that it brought has failed to capture their imagination.
Enpocket has carried out more than 100 MMS campaigns for Vodafone, but using the channel to promote a mobile operator's own offering is vastly different to attracting third-party brands to sign up to the service.
The cost of MMS is still prohibitive for most brands wishing to use it as a marketing channel; there is speculation it will fall in the next six months, though that may still not be enough to kickstart interest in MMS as anything other than a customer relationship management add-on.
Integrated ad agency Archibald Ingall Stretton handles consumer mobile marketing for O2, and, like Vodafone, the operator has been a pioneer in the mobile messaging space, integrating the channel into the majority of its marketing as well as making it central to its 'rewards' promotion. It uses SMS to support its cross-media advertising, sending out call-to-action messages to coincide with TV ads.
Jon Buckley, head of digital at AIS, admits mobile messaging is not suitable for all brands, but adds that the channel does have certain advantages when integrated properly. 'It can close the loop on all marketing channels, but you have to have complete data sets in order to do that,' he says.
The data issue has to be addressed when looking at running mobile messaging promotions. The Mobile Marketing Association's guidelines state that all mobile marketing campaigns should be opt-in; frequent users of mobile messaging for marketing, such as O2, often go for a double opt-in approach to make extra sure the consumer is happy to be targeted in such a way.
Contrary to online, where spam has become almost unavoidable - and yet preventable - there is no system to detect unwanted SMS messages. This means mobile phone users tend to guard their number closely and are loathe to disclose them unless there is a perceptible added value or benefit.
'If you give consumers information that does not interest them, you will annoy them and damage your brand in the process,' says mobile agency Kodime's marketing director Brigitte Kopke, whose clients include Music Choice and band The Editors.
Some technologies do not require opt-in, however: Bluetooth, for example, is used by marketing agencies such as Hypertag to send data to consumers' mobile phones from poster sites. According to the agency, which has worked with Heineken, Coca-Cola and Nokia, one of the problems of mobile messaging is a lack of consumer trust.
'We think proximity-marketing platforms will grow in the future, as the content offered is free to download,' says Hypertag director Jonathan Morgan. 'Consumers are suspicious of mobile marketing, whereas we simply count the number of people who download the content anonymously.'
Bluetooth offers a messaging opportunity that SMS and MMS messaging cannot replicate, directly beaming brand-specific content onto handsets. However, by its nature, the platform is restricted to being proximity-based and therefore does not have the one-to-one targetability of SMS and MMS.
Mobile messaging may not have been as prolific and successful as its early promoters promised, but, when integrated into other marketing channels or as a content-give-away channel, it can be a useful part of a holistic marketing experience.
Match Day Media, a trans-stadia TV network operating at the grounds of Arsenal, Manchester United and Newcastle United, uses mobile messaging to bolster its relationship with fans.
Match Day's TV network has a revenue-share deal with online download store Tune-Tribe to create 'fans' leagues' of the most popular music in the UK. Fans text in their favourite tune and their team following a call to action on-screen. They then receive an SMS message featuring a unique code with which to redeem the song online from TuneTribe as well as a ringtone of the track they picked.
'It's not a big ringtone audience, but we give it to them as a validation of the service, and the instant reward adds value to the experience,' says Match Day Media managing director Gerry McKenna. 'We are conscious of not being intrusive.'
The information collected, such as club preference, can then be used to segment the database of both TuneTribe and Match Day Media for further promotions. Match Day Media is now planning to evolve the system using Bluetooth so that it can persuade fans to both send and receive messages. Its iFan system allows fans to send in photos of themselves via camera phone; whenever they then interact with the Match Day Media screens, their photo is displayed.
Using mobile messaging for more than branding reasons is a promising direction for the medium to take, as will be using it to promote activity on other channels.
Teaser technology
Mitch Lazar, vice-president of business development for connected life at Yahoo! Europe, believes the future of SMS will be to act as a teaser to content on WAP and mobile internet pages. 'In the future, mobile search will be the big player. The messaging campaign business will not die, but it will be used only in certain cases,' he says.
The company used SMS text alerts as part of its World Cup offering this year through Fifaworldcup.com, but initiatives such as this are used merely to drive users back to the portals' WAP and web offerings.
Whether mobile messaging becomes marginalised as a marketing channel as the mobile internet develops will depend on whether it is still effective and relevant to users. SMS and MMS could still have an important role to play, especially if integrated into wider marketing initiatives by the operators and their advertisers.
- 'There are many fun and useful ways of using SMS. But it is not creatively rich, so media agencies have not been pushing it' - Jeremy Wright, Enpocket
- 'Mobile marketing can close the loop on all marketing channels, but you have to have complete data sets to do that' - Jon Buckley, Archibald Ingall Stretton
- 'If you give consumers information that does not interest them, you will annoy them and damage your brand in the process' - Brigitte Kopke, Kodime
- 'Football fans are not a big ringtone audience, but we give them to them as a validation of the service, and the instant reward adds value' - Gerry McKenna, Match Day Media
CASE STUDY - PEUGEOT 1007
Agency: Sledge
Background
Peugeot wanted to connect with a younger audience to build buzz around the launch of its 1007 model. It wanted to talk to consumers about the 1007's special features and encourage potential buyers to experience the car in different ways.
Strategy
A pre-launch strategy of disseminating model-specific information through disparate channels raised consumer interest months before the first models reached dealers. Brand-experience agency Sledge devised the campaign, which culminated in a national roadshow, where the car was finally unveiled.
Execution
The pre-launch campaign used PR, ambient media, guerrilla marketing and TV sponsorship of Five's 'Film Five' series. Underpinning every piece of work was mobile messaging as the preferred channel for customer response. Prospects were encouraged to text 81007 for all manner of reasons - to register for more information, to win £1007, to hear when the Peugeot roadshow was in their area, or to win the car itself. This created a unique ID number, which enabled tracking. The mobile channel was supported by a dedicated 1007 microsite. A research project ran alongside the campaign, with an SMS encouraging participation in an online survey or group discussions.
Results
Customers preferred SMS to other methods for obtaining information. At the roadshow, visitors were urged to 'Get in it to win it' - operating the 1007's sliding doors to enter the car and submitting the mileage via SMS for the chance to win a 1007; 97% of these submissions were received by text.
DATA FILE - TEXT MESSAGES
- 3.5bn text messages were sent in the UK in July - the highest total in a single month.
- 137m messages were sent on 17 August, the day A-level results were issued, up from 99m on the equivalent day last year.
- New Year's Day 2006 saw 165m messages sent, the highest daily total ever recorded by the Mobile Data Association. In second place was 1 July 2006, the day England played Portugal in the World Cup, when 140m messages were sent.
- In the first eight months of the year, 21bn person-to-person text messages had been sent across the UK's networks.
- The first text message was sent in December 1992. SMS was launched commercially for the first time in 1995.
- 65m UK subscribers were registered as active on UK networks as of the end of December 2005, of whom more than 70% send text messages.
- Among the top 10 business users of SMS are recruitment agencies, clubs and bars, couriers, hair salons, dentists and charities.
Source: Mobile Data Association
MOBILE MARKETING
Pros
- SMS and MMS can reach a mass market.
- Mobile owners in the UK use texts every day, and so are familiar with them.
- If properly segmented, a database of mobile numbers can allow for targeted communications.
Cons
- Messaging is intrusive and creates bad sentiment if not opt-in.
- Creative is limited in SMS.
- Long-term relationships are hard to maintain.
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