Cell phone promo programs help marketers get the message out

November 10, 2003

BY MICHAEL KRAUSS

If you’re a consumer products marketer who launches frequent promotional campaigns, I have a message for you.

Meet Jack Philbin. Philbin, the president of Vibes Media, an Evanston, Ill.-based start-up, is an engaging high-tech entrepreneur. His company is building consumer promotion applications that rely on cell phone text messaging as a tool to create and track scripted interactive conversations with consumers. He delivers valuable content through handsets via unique technology applications.

Sponsors come to him, and companies like his, to develop the software to run promotional programs using cell phone text messages. For example, if you turned up at Chicago’s United Center to watch a Chicago Bulls NBA basketball game, you’d likely see a message on the scoreboard asking you to key the words “pick me” into your cell phone and send the message to the number listed on the Jumbotron screen.

If you happen to be one of the three lucky winners, you’ll get notified via text messaging on your cell phone to come down to the court and put on an “InflataBull” uniform to compete in a footrace with two other fans.

The uniform is like an oversized balloon. Once inside, it’s clumsy and it’s hard to run. In fact, it looks pretty goofy to the crowd. Often the racers fall down and bounce around the court, flailing like fish out of water. Occasionally, there’s a close race, and it’s entertaining for the fans. Not surprisingly, Bedminster, N.J.-based Verizon Wireless sponsors the race and gives out prizes.

What’s interesting to the marketers in the audience is the conversations that can go on among the non-winners; conversations between sponsor and consumer. These conversations can build brand awareness, increase product involvement, improve the likelihood of brand adoption or simply educate, entertain or engage a prospective buyer.

At the NBA basketball game, Vibes Media scripts the promotions so that the thousands of non-winners receive text messages saying, “Thanks 4 entering the Inflatabulls contest! Sorry UR not the winner 2nite BUT Do U know how many NBA championships the Bulls have won? Reply w/the answer.”

“We can continue to engage the caller with team trivia,” Philbin said in a recent interview. “The Bulls can communicate with their fans--yet on a personal, one-on-one basis, and the fan dictates the pace by responding only when they want to,” he adds.

The result: Vibes Media is creating conversations and gaining active involvement in a public venue with a mass audience on a potentially customizable, individual basis. This is the kind of technology-enabled, mass customization that futurist Alvin Toffler predicted years ago. Radio stations, rock concert promoters and packaged goods manufacturers are jumping on the text messaging bandwagon.
This technology is unlikely to replace direct-purchase incentives such as coupons carried on “best food day” or in Sunday newspaper freestanding inserts. Text message-based promotions are simply a new channel, but one that product marketers should take seriously. They can spice up and enhance boring, old promotional techniques like contests and sweepstakes. Who could be against that?

“Messaging has been in the United States for a while,” says Richard Vile, director of messaging for Verizon Wireless. “We’ve had paging. We’ve had e-mail and instant messaging. With short text messaging, we’re finding that interactivity is the key. Once you get the handsets that send messages, you can create an addiction because you have this instant, always-on, nationwide, wherever-you-go ability to receive and send a message. Plus short message services are cheap and silent,” he says.

In addition, early problems linking one carrier’s messaging capability across to another carrier are being solved, Vile reports. “With interoperability, you can send a message from a Verizon handset to an AT&T or a T-Mobile phone,” he says. “You can send a message to anyone with a handset or an e-mail address.”

Imagine kids at a rock concert: jumbo screens on either side of the stage, large audiences. Now an individual can post a message on the screen for a small charge. Vibes Media keeps the tawdry messages off the screen. But, conversations can take place in the concert hall while the music plays. Is it worth 50 cents or $1 a message? Can those fees be shared between advertiser and cellular provider? You bet. Can promotions become self-liquidating? Maybe, but don’t count on it.
Consider the consumer products marketer, the maker of shampoo, potato chips or the beverage manufacturer. Put a call-in code on a soft drink can and use it to enter a contest or a sweepstakes. You can push a message back to the consumer on their cell phone engaging them in a dialogue. You can find out in real time just how many consumers are entering your contest at what time of day and at which locations.

The approach is already being used to make television shows interactive. “AT&T did a program with American Idol to vote for your favorite star,” Philbin says.

Vile adds that Verizon participated in an NBA MVP voting contest. “We allowed fans of the NBA to vote during the All-Star Game at the Conference Finals and during the NBA Finals to select their most valuable player,” he says.

If you’re a consumer promotions manager, you should know that text messaging is a new way to engage consumers. You can have immediacy, consumer convenience and better data to evaluate your ROI. It’s a novel and new approach. And it may even offer revenue opportunities.

The downside is that the technique is still in its early stages. You should probably pilot and test your promotions. You’ll need to coordinate multiple providers--an application developer like Vibes Media; a phone company, or carrier, like Verizon; along with your traditional consumer promotion or advertising agency. So the program can be complex and with complexity comes executional challenges.

Still, the message from Philbin is pretty clear. He’s bullish on text message-based promotions. He says the technique has already taken hold in Europe and Asia. He thinks North American promotion managers ought to try it out. As a technology entrepreneur, Philbin’s only real problem these days is getting the word out about text messaging.
Let’s see, I have three instant message platforms on my desktop, two voice mails, a fax machine, a home answering machine as well as three e-mail accounts, and a cell phone equipped for text messaging.

Jack, with all these technology platforms out there, I think marketers will get the message.

Michael Krauss is a partner with Marion Consulting Partners and can be reached at Michael.Krauss@Marionpartners.com or news@ama.org.