Texting News

Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue runs 2D bar code MMS campaign

MMS and bar codes are two mobile marketing technologies that are slowly being adopted. Sports Illustrated has jumped aboard:

Readers of Sports Illustrated’s June 29 Swimsuit Vault issue can take and send a picture of a Jagtag 2D bar code to receive the photo spread, which includes between seven and 14 pictures delivered via a single MMS, depending on their phone's capabilities. Every participant's camera phone works instantly, without having to download a code-reading application or incurring the costs of accessing the mobile Web without a data plan, according to Jagtag.

Using the phone's camera without specialized software is something that every bar code campaign should do--otherwise brands can't expect to go as wide as they need to go to see success. Still, the program is not available across all carriers:

Sports Illustrated's edit team included the Jagtag callout within a SI Swimsuit Vault spread in the June 29 issue. The call-to-action was headlined, “Swimsuit photos on your phone.”
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The text read: “To get a sampling of the most beautiful SI swimsuit pictures delivered instantly to your cell phone, take a picture of this Jagtag and then send it to short code 524824 (iPhones send to [email protected]). Available to Alltel, AT&T and Verizon customers only. Standard messaging or data rates apply.”

For the time being only SMS-based mobile marketing can reach all US mobile users.

Read more @ Mobile Marketer.

Ace Hardware's Mobile Advertising Campaign Is A Big Success

Mobile Marketer reports on a recent Ace Hardware mobile advertising campaign:

Ace Hardware’s idle screen mobile marketing campaign has generated an 18 percent click-through rate and has helped the retailer drive in-store traffic. 

The company used Mobile Posse’s idle screen advertising platform to promote popular home maintenance products to mobile consumers. The campaign was launched around Ace’s Memorial Day Sale and  invited consumers to visit their local Ace Hardware to take advantage of great deals.

Read more @ Mobile Marketer.

Visit Club Texting to learn more about Mobile Marketing for Retail.

 

Mobile Coupons Take Off With Marketers

Mobile Marketer had a great roundup yesterday of the plethora of recent mobile couponing campaigns:

Brands including Firestone, Hollywood Video, Popeye’s, Borders and OshKosh B’gosh are distributing coupons via smartphone applications.
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Bridgestone’s Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. distributes various mobile coupons’ via Mobiqpon’s applications, including a “Buy 2 tires and get one free” offer.

Similarly, Hollywood Video has run a “Rent 2 movies, get another movie free” promotion using Mobiqpon’s mobile couponing apps.

Quick-serve restaurant Popeye’s tapped Mobiqpons for a mobile couponing campaign offering free two-piece chicken dinners.

Bookstore chain Borders regularly offers 20 percent discount coupons via Mobiqpons’ apps, as well as special birthday offers for regular customers who share specific data.

OshKosh B’gosh, a children’s apparel company specializing in bib overalls, has distributed various mobile coupons via Mobiqpons, including “20 percent off your next purchase of $50 or more.”

Read more @ Mobile Marketer

To learn more about SMS based mobile coupons that do not require smartphone applications, visit Club Texting.

Palm Pre App Store Closing In On 700,000 Downloads

It ain't one billion downloads, but the Palm Pre App store is off to a solid start:

On Saturday, June 6th, the Palm Pre launched nationwide after roughly two years of development. Two years isn’t a whole lot of time when you think about the fact that they not only created a new device, but a new operating system and app store at the same time. The device has a sharp design (literally and figuratively), a stunning user interface, and a lot of potential to grow into a competitive platform in the smartphone market.

On May 29th, 2009, 9 days before the device officially launched nationwide, the Palm Pre App Catalog went live with 4 apps (Classic, Sudoku, Today Show, and WHERE). By launch day (6/6/09), this number grew to 18 apps total and then jumped to 30 at the end of the first week (6/12/09), and has remained unchanged since. Compared to the other app stores we’ve seen so far, this number is a mere fraction on what we’ve experienced at launch, but there are a few factors that paint a picture as to why this isn’t an issue.

Check out this nice graph, courtesy of Medialets:
Palm-first-12-days
Read more @ Medialets

New From The Mobile Marketing Forum: MGM Grand's Mobile Marketing Strategy Revealed

Lots of news coming out of this week's Mobile Marketing Forum. Here's a big story from MGM Grand:

MGM Grand Hotel & Casino revealed its mobile strategy to attendees of the Mobile Marketing Association’s Mobile Marketing Forum.

The hotel chain plans to continue to use the mobile channel as a means of data acquisition and to use information collected to expand upon its existing on-property SMS offers. An MGM executive revealed some of the company’s plans and even gave the audience tips in terms of using the mobile channel.

Read more @ Mobile Marketer.

Holographic Text Messages - Whoa!

This viral video has got to be about the coolest text message we've ever seen:

Holographic Text Messages will rock your world. With 1.5 million views in just a couple weeks, this viral video proves it. The video, by Inha Luke Yoo describes the concept as HoloText Messaging. The kicker of course, is that this sort of technology isn’t yet available. But this concept video does a great job of showing you what holographic text messages will be like.

And the video:

(via textually.org)

Safeway Supermarkets To Offer Mobile Coupons

MediaPost's MediaDailyNews reports that Safeway has jumped into the mobile couponing game:

Two more supermarket chains are introducing mobile coupon services for shoppers, marking another advance for this increasingly popular marketing channel.

Tom Thumb and Randall's -- both owned by Safeway -- are currently cooperating with packaged-goods manufacturers General Mills, Unilever and Kimberly-Clark to offer shoppers 21 coupons for goods like pre-packaged tossed salad and children's cereal.

Read the entire article @ MediaPost.

Head over to Club Texting to learn more about mobile coupons, or read our white paper, the Club Texting Guide To Mobile Couponing.

Hyatt Launches A Very Useful Mobile Website

Hyatt jumps on to the mobile web in a big way:

According to the official announcement from the hotel giant, Hyatt guests can now visit the mobile site to take advantage of the following features and more:

· Find and book a hotel by location
· Hyatt special offers
· View or cancel a reservation
· Web check in and check out
· Access Hyatt’s Yatt’it travel tips by country
Hyatt and its affiliates own, operate or manage hotels in 45 countries worldwide.

You can visit the Hyatt mobile site on a regular browser to get an idea of what they are doing.

Read more @ Mobile Marketing Watch

Depeche Mode Launches Very Cool iPhone App

Mobile marketing watch has the details on a very cool iPhone app courtesy of Depeche Mode:

Available for the iPhone and iPod touch. iZotope’s iDrum apps let users “create music by tapping the touch screen and rearranging simple shapes and color combinations.”
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iDrum: Depeche Mode Sounds of the Universe is available for $4.99 on the Apple App Store (eat your heart out Nine Inch Nails) and includes “ten customizable kits” with sounds from songs on the album.

For those who love something to literally play with, you’re in luck. iDrum: Depeche Mode Sounds of the Universe also allows users to manipulate album sounds to create music by:

* Tapping the touch screen to play and record musical patterns
* Taking control of the rhythm of every drum sound and sample
* Remixing rhythmic patterns from the album or starting from scratch to make new musical creations
* Bringing sounds in and out of the mix to change the music
* Customizing patterns to create unique new beats

Read the entire story @ mobile marketing watch.

Pandora Sells 1 Million Songs A Month; 20% Through Their iPhone App

The Pandora iPhone app is a must have for every iPhone user. It's one of our favorite websites to listen to and discover music at our desks. And when we're on the street their iPhone app supplies an unlimited playlist. So it makes us happy to hear this:

Pandora is a company that mainly makes its money through advertising deals on its streaming Internet radio service. But a growing portion of the business is also affiliate downloads of songs that users hear on Pandora and want to buy on either iTunes or Amazon’s MP3 service. And the biggest mover accelerating growth in that regard are downloads taking place on the iPhone.

Users are buying about a million songs a month now from these affiliate links on Pandora, CTO Tom Conrad tells me. Of those, a solid 20% are coming directly from Pandora’s iPhone app, which includes an easy link to open the iPhone’s iTunes app, and buy a track. That’s really impressive considering that it’s just one phone that a relatively small percentage of their users use.

Read the entire article @ TechCrunch, which includes some out of this world revenue projections.

Improved Threaded SMS Chatting On Windows Mobile Phones

To those Windows Mobile powered smartphone users wanting a better threaded SMS chatting experience look no further:

VITO Technology has recently released an updated version of its popular threaded messaging client for Windows Mobile - SMS-Chat. Version 1.2 of the application now has 3 skins (dark, clear and light), SM backup function, and is more stable than ever thanks to Vito’s efforts to fix some of the known bugs. Moreover, the updated app sports an “enhanced look and functionality,” ensuring great experience when using the app.

Read more @ IntoMobile

BlackBerry Recovers The Smartphone Throne

The BlackBerry Storm hasn't exactly been the iPhone killer that RIMM was hoping for. Nevertheless, they managed to climb back to the top of the smartphone heap in Q1 2009. How? Discounts:

An aggressive “buy-one-get-one” promotion by Verizon Wireless helped Research in Motion’s BlackBerry Curve move past Apple’s iPhone to become the best-selling consumer smartphone in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2009, according to a market research report Monday.

RIM’s consumer smartphone market share increased 15 percent to nearly 50 percent of the smartphone market in the first quarter versus the prior quarter, as Apple Inc.’s (Nasdaq:AAPL) and Palm Inc.’s (Nasdaq:PALM) share both declined 10 percent each.

Sounds like an excellent recession strategy.

Read more @ Biz Journals.

Mobile Apps Revenue Set To Explode

Text messaging dominates mobile marketing at the moment. But what does the future hold?

Revenue from mobile applications will top $25 billion by 2014, according to Juniper Research. The market researcher says this growth will occur because of "a raft of store launches targeting both high-end and mass market handsets."

 

As Apple has already distributed 1 billion apps for the iPhone, you can imagine how many impressions $25 billion dollars worth of apps could deliver if even a fraction of them were to include advertising.

Read more @ Media Bistro.

Is Android Turning Into A Viable iPhone Competitor?

A new AdMob report seems to indicate the T-Mobile G-1 is starting to catch on (we also hear that they've sold 1 million of them)

According to AdMob, in the five months since the Android Market for applications launched in the US, requests from Android devices increased an average 47% per month. As good as that sounds, it's nothing compared with the traffic generated by iPhone; in the first five months after the iTunes App Store went live in the US last July, requests from the iPhone grew 88% per month.

Read More @ Media Bistro

Globalization, Blogging & SMS

How would you like to follow SMS-powered micro-blogs written by your favorite NBA stars...in Mandarin:

MogoTXT, a start-up that operates public texting groups, has launched texting groups for a handful of NBA players. Initially, five pro basketballers have agreed to post daily text messages that their fans can sign up to receive.
...
The initial players who'll be texting are Shane Battier of the Houston Rockets; LaMarcus Aldridge, Portland Trailblazers; Jordan Farmar, LA Lakers; Eric Gordon, LA Clippers and Spencer Hawes, Sacramento Kings.

Read more @ Media Bistro

What Recession? Mobile Marketing Keeps Going Strong

A new report from Jupiter Research confirms what many in the mobile marketing industry know (and have read about in many other places):

It’s no secret that display advertising has seen the largest hit, but the recession is not all to blame for the steep decline.  Other forms of more targeted advertising have proved to not only be more cost efficient, but much more effective.  Mobile marketing is holding steady through these tough times because it holds these two attributes.

What’s more interesting is that mobile marketing in general is seeing the same amount of investment that it did before the economic crisis even began, according to the report.  Windsor Holden, principal analyst at Juniper Research, believes this could lead to the mobile advertising sector becoming more widely adopted by marketers than it otherwise would have without a recession.

Read more @ Mobile Marketing Watch

A|X Armani Exchange Launches Their First Mobile Advertising Campaign

Armani Exchange has jumped into the mobile advertising arena, as we suspect many other brands will when faced with declining revenues:

A|X Armani Exchange has launched its first mobile advertising campaign to promote its A|X Armani Exchange Spring 2009 collection.
...
“The Armani Exchange Spring 2009 mobile advertising program gives A|X the opportunity to engage our customers in a timely, relevant and entertaining way,” said Tom Jarrold, senior vice president of global marketing and communications at Armani Exchange, New York.

Read more @ Mobile Marketer
Learn more about Mobile Marketing for retailers @ Club Texting

Greystripe’s iPhone Ad Units Win CTIA Top Prize

One last item to report from this year's CTIA in Las Vegas:

Rich media mobile ad network Greystripe took hope top prize in mobile advertising at CTIA’s Emerging Technology Awards. The SF-based company, which raised $5.5 in Series C funding last month, announced today its big win in the “Mobile Applications and Widgets - Mobile Marketing / Advertising” category at the awards.

So what exactly did they win the award for?

Greystripe’s GS.Rich Media iPhone ad format earned them the prize. They allow for full-screen, Flash advertisements for the iPhone, enabling digital marketers to bring online creatives to mobile. The technology came out of their work in mobile gaming, where they designed in-game ads — images, video commercials and scrolling banners — that were worked into the flow of regular mobile gameplay without causing major disruptions.

Read more @ Mobile Marketing Watch

Valpak Embraces Mobile Coupons

We've been saying that mobile couponing (see our guide) is taking off for a while now. Now comes word that coupon giant Valpak has embraced the format:

Shared mail giant Valpak is making coupons and offers available to consumers via mobile in yet another indication of the channel's growing appeal for targeted marketing.

The St. Petersburg, FL-based company claims it is focused on reaching people wherever they are, whether on social networking Web sites and on their mobile phones. With this move, Valpak joins rival Money Mailer with its own mobile initiatives for advertisers.

Read the entire article at Mobile Marketer or find out more about Mobile Coupons for your business at Club Texting.

What Happened Today In History?

NBC News recently launched a new SMS alert service that should appeal to history buffs:

NBC News has launched a new SMS service called Today in History. It sends out one fact per day about an event that occurred on the current date in an earlier year. Simply Text ICUE to 275622.

Read more @ Textually

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