If you’ve been reading this blog over the past year you’ll remember me ranting on about how there is a genuine business case for restaurants, brands and retailers to take their PDF/email voucher campaigns and make them SMS.
The situation still remains the same, Pizza Express, GBK, La Tasca, Gap and all the other places you know and love STILL make you print vouchers that have NO UNIQUE codes on them. If paper isn’t tracked, why should mobile to start off with? When consumers gradually change their behaviour and begin to use these things THEN look towards EPOS upgrades and improvements, I’m not saying tracking isn’t important, but right now all you need is a single SMS without anything dynamic.
This doesn’t call for some expensive, 3rd party solution, it just needs to be something you can show at point of sale. Unfortunately the industry is littered with people who want to over complicate this by trying to license their technology, stalling any sort of progress with custom solutions that require some impact of the business, whether it’s EPOS configurations or coupon management systems.
Anyway, so it looks like YO! Sushi have taken the first step towards saving some trees and me having to buy ink for my printer – by introducing SMS vouchers instead of paper. JOY!
I’d been waiting for the day when I got my weekly Money Saving Expert email from Martin containing an offer using SMS and today it happened. Good offer too, check it out:
If you text in you’ll get back a unique code which you give to the cashier. YO! Sushi have fancy EPOS terminals so I’m guessing they can accept codes without too much effort? Would be nice to get some clarification on this anyone?
I think the iTagg are the guys behind this, good work!
If you live and holiday in Europe you tend to not worry about sharks when splashing about in the sea, but now that I’ve moved to Sydney the chances of me getting eaten have increased considerably making me wary of every bit of seaweed and shadow in the water. My current method of shark attack prevention is making sure that there are at least 10 or more people in front of me so I don’t land the first bite.
Luckily scientists have come up with a slightly more advanced way to stop people from getting hurt. They’ve tagged over 70 great white sharks with transmitters which trigger any of 18 acoustic seabed receivers. Whenever a shark is close to a beach or shoreline, the receivers fire off an SMS message to life guards within 2 minutes of first detection.
Just been flicking through the news I missed last week and saw this little gem.
When The Cove won the Oscar for Best Documentary, one of its producers, Ric O’Barry held up a sign saying “Text DOLPHIN to 44144″ which directs people to sign a petition to shut down dolphin slaughter in the Cove. The petition will be sent to President Obama and the Japanese Ambassador to the U.S., Ichiro Fujisaki.
The cameras cut away a few seconds after the sign was held up (you can watch it here) but even still 32,000 responses came flooding in. Once the news started to spread over Twitter and blogs, it went even higher.
This got me thinking, what if this happened on the biggest stage in the entire world…the World Cup Finals?
For a long time it’s been clear in my mind where mobile advertising is heading – firmly in the hands of handset manufacturers. Google and Apple now have their own ad networks meaning the two user experience juggernauts will own where the ads come from as well as where they appear.
I keep banging on about the opportunity they have to ‘redefine’ mobile advertising and ‘start from scratch’. What I mean by this is that the limitations of many current methods such as SMS, MMS, Bluetooth and banner ads can be erased because the manufacturers can make up completely new ad channels that utilise features of the phone. And because this will be achieved by using data rather than messaging, it allows for better value for advertisers using CPC, CPA and CPM. All this has influenced the following concept..
The Concept
On device semantic SMS advertising would turn every SMS the user ever sends or receives into an advertising opportunity for the manufacturer. At first that might sound massively intrusive but it’s all about the execution.
The thought that spawned this concept was making advertising so useful that it could change its perception in the eyes of the user so they wouldn’t even question its placement on the phone. I wanted to blur the lines so the user would see it as a tool rather than a direct ad channel.
It works by recognising keywords or the meaning of the sentence/conversation within an SMS and adding dynamic functionality to those words. For example, your friend asks you if you want to go to the cinema, the word ‘cinema’ would be highlighted and clicking it would reveal cinemas in the area.
Within a few clicks you can find out film times and buy a ticket, all within the device interface. This purchase can be tracked and the manufacturer gets a cut of the profits.
Mobile solutions company Incentivated power the new SMS flight info service for British Airways. Fantastic, SMS is easy peasy, so let’s hear more about it:
According to Mobile Marketing Watch:
The service, available for UK- and US-registered mobile phones, enables users to get up-to-the-minute flight information for yesterday, today and the next five days. Users text D for Departures or A for Arrivals followed by a space, the departure date of the flight (in the form DDMMYY or MMDDYY for the US) and the British Airways flight number (eg BAXXXX) to 60747 in the UK, 70615 in the US.
OOohh laawwd – how the hell is anyone meant to use this service again if they have to remember all that?
So I decided to give it a try and deliberately entered false details to see if I would get a error message back saying explaining how to do it correctly. I.e “Sorry that was wrong, please try again by entering D or A….”
UPDATE 11.30pm GMT : It has now topped $4 million in 36 hours
Twitter and Facebook proving they can actually be used to save the world.
The American Red Cross have been raising money for the earthquake disaster in Haiti and the tweet above has just been put out by the State Department member Jared Cohen.
The New York Times have just said that Facebook is reporting 1500 status updates PER minute containing the word Haiti.
No sooner than my post about location about to become interesting for consumers, Techcrunch posted an article about a concept by AT&T for ‘on-the-go’ mobile coupons.
Ever since the dawn of time mobile marketers have been using the ‘Starbucks coupon’ example to sell the idea of location based coupons into brands and businesses. I’ve used it a few times because it’s the easiest way to explain to someone who’s ‘non-mobile’ about location and the possibilities.
The scenario goes like this, you sign up for a mobile coupon service, fill out your profile, ticking coffee and various other things as your interests. You walk past Starbucks one day and BAM, your mobile beeps and it’s a 20% discount SMS coupon for a cup of coffee. Then you stroll in, extremely happy and redeem your coupon. Win for you and a win for Starbucks.
This basically applies to the concept by operator AT&T, the idea is simple, as consumers walk around a city, they get mobile alerts whenever their favourite nearby stores and restaurants have a deal. It works by the mobile operator constantly monitoring the customers location (opt-in of course), then matching that info to available retailers to push coupons/info.
Sounds great, apart from one problem….it uses SMS.
Firstly you will never escape the fact that SMS advertising messages are intrusive. They arrive into your inbox just like personal messages, they don’t have a separate folder, they don’t arrive silently, they don’t generate a different on-screen alert or icon. Oh and if it’s a coupon, you can’t sort by expiry date.
Just like any consumer, I’m interested in around 100+ different brands, everything from clothing, electronics, all the way to peanut butter. Do I want discounts on these brands? Hell yes (I love those printed vouchers), gimme as much as possible. Do I want my phone beeping several times a day and my inbox filling up? Hell no.
No matter how targeted the coupon is, there is no way a location based SMS service can remain useful and scale to cover the amount of brands an average consumer likes without severely pissing them off, regardless of opting-in. Read More
God damn you Nike, letting your agencies run wild and be massively innovative with the brand. How dare you.
I totally missed this campaign which ran in the summer, it’s off the hook. Nike teamed up with the guys at Tour De France to display messages of “hope, perseverance and love” with the road-printing Chalk Bot. Read More
Orange UK customers can now upload their pictures to their Twitter stream by simply sending them to 86444.
The service is run through a photo site called Snapshot which is run by Orange, and it all works pretty seemlessly too. I tried it out today and you just send your first MMS and get a SMS back which links you to a Twitter authorisation page. Read More
Does your child own a mobile phone and still believe in Santa? (Is this even possible?)
If so then TextSanta.net is the service for you, for a mere $5.49 an SMS can be sent to your child appearing to be from Santa himself. A choice of three pre-set SMS message themes is available, here is a sample:
Hi <insert name here> It snowed a foot here@ the North Pole! Elves had 2 dig my sleigh out of the snow Hope the weather n St. Louis is good.cu soon luv Santa
You can also insert your own custom message and schedule the time for the SMS to be sent.
..and that’s about all it does.
However Text Santa does give $1.00 from that hefty fee to March Of Dimes which is a charity which improves the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality.
A cheaper way to do this is to put your number (or someone else’s) into your childs phone contacts as ‘Santa’ then send them a text with the desired message. If they aren’t smart enough to figure out Santa doesn’t exist then they probably won’t work out what you’ve done.
….then give extra to the March of Dimes with all that money you saved 
You can donate here.
[Via Textually]
During a global viral pandemic, there is no question that the quickest and most effective way to inform the public is by using mobile phones. It has the ability not only to save peoples lives but also to combat the virus being spread by providing real time alerts and information.
Initiatives such as Project Masiluleke shows that a simple SMS message to millions of people can raise awareness to levels that TV and radio cannot. Eventually this leads to prevention.
The clever guys Harvard Medical School hope to achieve the same thing with their new iPhone App, Swine Flu Center. It features everything you need to educate yourself about swine flu including video guides, symptom checks, hotlines to call in case of an emergency (based on your location) and a ‘Health Map’ showing the state of the epidemic in your area. All this for $1.99.
After recently hitting the jackpot by finding a Pay As You Go sim card topped up with £14 credit under a sock in my flat, I’ve decided test out premium rate SMS question and answer services.
The concept behind of these services is very simple, once you text in your question it gets routed to a researcher who will send you back an answer within one SMS. At the cost of around £1 per answer, it’s not cheap.
Most people are familiar with AQA (Answer Question Answered) who are undoubtedly the grandaddy of the whole SMS answering thing. They started out in 2004 and have answered over 20 million questions to date.
However competition is never far away from a good idea and since the AQA launch there have been dozens of identical services launched in the UK and abroad.
It’s really interesting that people are still willing to pay up to £1 to have their question answered when services such as Google and Yahoo Answers (plus dozens more) could potentially answer your questions for free on your mobile.
Even Twitter is a potential treasure chest of answers, just tweet your question out to your network and sit back. However you probably need more than the 54 followers I have to get the kind of knowledge range needed, I bet Ashton Kutcher never has a problem with a tweeted question.
Lets face it, there is nothing easier for a consumer than sending a text which is why they are paying £1 for the pleasure. You text a question then get an answer back. Simple.
But who is the best in the UK? Lets find out and move onto the main contestants for the UK showdown.
The Challengers
AQA: The Peoples Champion (http://www.aqa.63336.com)
The original SMS answering service, but are they still the best? Generally liked by most people and a recent BBC Watchdog experiment revealed they are the most accurate. Lets see about that. Cost per answer: £1
118 118: The Contender (http://www.text118118.com)
The quality of the service has been in question ever since they made the headlines last year by sending out racist jokes. The website has some nice touches such as the live question feed, plus decent exposure on TV and outdoor ads, but can they provide me answers without offending me? Cost per answer: £1
ANSA: The Unknown (http://www.ansanow.com)
Started 2 years ago by Rok, ANSA is relatively unknown, to be honest I have no idea how I found them. The website is horrible so I’m not expecting much here. Cost per answer: £1 Read More
If you’re a commuter in London, you will no doubt have at one time or another felt the pain of the waiting ages for a bus. Finally, a solution is being developed using the mobile web and SMS to give commuters much needed bus arrival information.
The London bus service isn’t as predictable as the Underground for obvious reasons. Things such as traffic, crazy school kids, crazy passengers and accidents all happen hundreds of times every day across nearly a thousand bus routes, which is why the printed time tables displayed on bus shelters can only give you approximate times. These times mean nothing if any of the previous incidents have happened and delay the bus. During the day this is a pain and at night it could be dangerous if you’re on your own. There also might be situations where it could be quicker to take the next available bus and change again rather than wait for your bus to arrive in time.
TFL currently has a system called Countdown (below) which provides real-time bus arrival information at stops, which is great apart from….
..its not on every bus stop:
Although Countdown is on ‘key’ bus stops, it’s not on nearly enough across the capital. That’s where the SMS and mobile web step in. TFL already have a pretty good suite of mobile services using WAP, SMS and Java Apps that cover live updates, journey planning, interactive maps and taxi hire – all for free. Read More
Director Sally Porter is embracing mobile in a big way with the release of her new low-budget film called Rage starring Jude Law, Judi Dench, Eddie Izzard and loads of other big names. The movie is (according to the trailer but probably isn’t) filmed on a mobile phone, is in cinemas this week.
The film went straight-to-mobile as well as being broadcast live across theatres in London and Europe. There was also be a chance to be part of the Q&A after the film by sending SMS messages directly to the director and cast. A very cool bit of mobile interaction. See the webcast here.
Viewers will need to download a Bablegum application (groan) before being able to view the movie on their mobile.
Rage takes the format of being a series of ‘interviews’ over a 7 day period. Bablegum will release a ‘interview’ a day for one week to cover the entire film. Read More
What do you get when you take the Schiesser Bluetooth underwear campaign and use SMS instead? You get this ad from Axe deodorant (or Lynx if you’re in the UK). Click to enlarge.
The print ad displays a picture of a model looking like she could be naked and a call to action. The message says “To complete this ad send Axe to 2345 after 9pm”, once you send the text you get a picture message (MMS) back with the rest of the ad showing the model in her underwear. Great, so you paid 11p to basically look at a Marks & Spencer’s advert. Read More
