by Branimir Parashkevov

More than an year has passed since the publishing of the first SMS-novel. It was created in Finland and it was called The Last Messages.

The entire narrative consists of mobile phone text messages, describing the life of a fictitious IT-executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only through text messages. The author, Hannu Luntiala, has created around 1000 messages and replies of the main character . The author has left errors in the SMS messages, too so they look even more authentic.

“I believe that, at the end of the day, a text message may reveal much more about a person than you would initially think,” said Luntiala, who also is head of a company that keeps databases on people living in Finland.

by Branimir Parashkevov

Hi everyone! Excuse me for being two days late with this post. Here I am with another case study on Mobile Marketing. Today I am going to introduce you the case of SoCal (South California) McDonald’s that were reaching their customers through text messages.

In the second quarter of 2005 SoCal McDonald’s launched a new one-month-long promotion targeted mainly in young adults. They allowed their customers to send a text message “McFlurry” to 73260 and automatically receive a redeemable coupon for a free “McFlurry” dessert. Also, the user was able to get the coupon from http://www.mobilestr33t.com/ and present it again in one of the participating stores from the chain.

The idea was invented by the McDonald’s Operators’ Association of Southern California (more than 600 franchised and company-owned stores in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties) and Gamut Industries LLC (a San Francisco mobile marketing company).

“This promotion is yet another example of how McDonald’s is reaching out to the youth market in a way that is meaningful to them,” said Clayton Paschen, III, president of the McDonald’s Operators’ Association of Southern California (MOASC), in a statement.

As the promotion targeted people in the age-range of 14 to 26, David Moranville, managing director, Gamut Industries, said that the goal was to “create a compelling way to connect with the younger demographic and make McDonald’s a relevant brand in [consumers] lives”. “McDonald’s recognizes that this is a unique target audience. The old tried and true method to communicate with them just doesn’t work anymore.”

The promotion phase of the service was connected with wild posting (sticking posters on different places) in high school, skate parks, and retail areas as well as billboards and buses presenting the text part of the campaign.

“The mobile coupon, as well as the free wallpaper and ringtones, pose great incentives for consumers”, Moranville said. “You get immediate gratification,” he said. “There’s no mail. You just click.”

One more goody from this promotion was that if you download your coupon from http://www.mobilestr33t.com/ you’re allowed to download free wallpapers of famous singers and bands as DJ Nelson, Green Day, Linkin Park and many others.

This case seems similar to the one of Dunkin Donuts, but you can see here one difference - it’s the targeting options and practices. This shows us that mobile services in combination with web-content are a sure way for winning customer’s interest in our services, as soon as we prepare well and have the ideas. Still, every target group is possible and the promotion practices are unlimited!

by Branimir Parashkevov

Hello, hello. Welcome this week for another issue of the History of Marketing postings. Today I am going to introduce another interesting idea that was implemented in Australia. The Edge 96.ONE is Sydney’s leading hip hop and R&B station. It is an RnB radio that has a lot of new artists presented at the radio air. The radio staff wanted to develop a user-friendly interactive SMS service, allowing the listeners to request the name of the song that is on air and the performing artist by just sending a short message by their phone. This allowed them to reduce the phone call that they were receiving and added one more way for connection with their customers. Back at the radio there was constant work on the update process - the database with songs and artists has to be always up-to-date. Each time a new song is played, the DJ is announcing: “To find out what is playing, just SMS SONG to 1975 7777 and we’ll SMS ya back the name of the song and artist!” Finally, for only 55c the sender receives the requested information. Did you get new ideas? As this article shows, no matter how simple an idea is, if implemented at the right place it can help you achieve a lot. So be creative, risk but be realistic, too.

by Branimir Parashkevov

As of today we will start a new weekly topic. It’s called “History of Mobile Marketing” and here we will present successful SMS-based campaigns from the first written SMS till now. Some of them are not so creative, and some of them are a real work of a genius but all have contributed greatly to the ones that ordered them. They can help you create your winning idea and take you to the top…who knows? Today’s case will be about Dunkin Donuts. In 2002 Dunkin Donuts, Italy started an SMS campaign that was based on interaction with their customers and aimed at increase of the revenue of 7 of their retail stores and finding new local employees. They wanted something different that will attract people’s attention as they were new to the market in Italy where Sweet & Co was already the local ruler there. The results were stunning - 9% increase in sales for Dunkin Donuts and a lot of interested customers. But what have they done? The promotion was a combination of print, outdoor, and broadcast advertisements which allowed the customer to participate by entering five-digit short codes into their Web-enabled mobile phones. After sending it, a coupon for purchase of a donut was sent back to the customer. But the good things continue - if you use the coupon at any Roman store of Dunkin Donuts you’re automatically entered into a drawing to win a free Piaggio scooter. “Young people between 18 and 30 are the largest users of SMS in Italy, and are also a target market for Dunkin’ Donuts,” says Michael Correletti, international business manager for Dunkin’ Donut’s worldwide franchise network. “This was an opportunity to communicate directly to our core customers.” The success of the campaign is undisputed. The overall sales also increased with 20% even during the first week. Many of the customers have heard about the SMS-coupons by radio-ads or by some of the many promotional leaflets and posters. The combination of print, outdoor, or broadcast advertising proved to be working again. GianLuigi Contin, Dunkin Donuts franchisee, says, “We are directly reaching our targets with a message they can understand. Cellular coupons are not cute promotions, rather they are serious marketing tools that not only extend the brand but are also directed towards the people we want to reach.” As a conclusion, SMS, if used in an ethical way as in the case above, is one of the best ways to get to your prospective customers without being annoying and still offering them a glimpse in your offers, while allowing interaction. So what are you waiting for? (the creator of the Dunkin Donuts SMs-campaign was AdreAct)

by Chilldor
At Mobile Marketing Forum last November NIKE’s year 2006 was noted as especially successful in the field of mobile marketing. In addition to that some outstanding examples of mobile marketing campaigns were pointed out. From their Top 10 I would mention a few:

Nike’s ID campaign where by-passers could via mobile phones design sneakers displayed on an electronic billboard and win brand new Nike sneakers. In the videos shown by Eric Wheeler (Ogilvy) and Gene Keenan (Isobar International) some people totally lost it, to put it mildly, when they saw on the big screen footwear designed by themselves. Besides the fact that Nike gave out 3000 pairs of sneakers during this campaign, the project was made especially exciting by giving people the chance to participate in it first hand.

“True Beauty” campaign by Dove - in the same way as Nike, Dove put up a picture of an elderly woman on an electronic billboard and by-passers could vote per SMS “wrinkled” or “beautiful”. The image on the billboard kept changing according to what kind of messages were sent.

Pontiac G6 promotion campaign, where people who spotted G6 on the street, had to take a picture of it with their mobiles and send it as an MMS in order to participate in the drawing of 1 million dollars.

The promotion of the movie “Snakes on a Plane” - the campaign participants could themselves design a phone call from Samuel L. Jackson and forward it to their friends. The receivers of the call thought that the call was from their friend but, when answering it, it turned out to be Jackson. The campaign was unbelievably successful in creating a positive “fuss” around the movie. More than 4 million calls were made during the campaign.
But in order to set up a phenomenally successful mobile campaign, you only need a bit of imagination!