From the moment I landed in Europe mobile campaigns assisting alongside traditional marketing campaigns are widespread. Alcohol brand Carlsberg is using a mobile call to action with a fun campaign called “What’s on, where?”. User can text CARLSBERG to the short code to get information on where the party’s at! The call to actions are properly placed on coasters at all pubs in Dublin and to increase participation, the texts for the Carlsberg campaign are a freetext which does not take away from the users standard rate messaging plan. In the States this is called Free to the End User (FTEU), but is not supported cross-carrier (surprise, surprise). Currently Carriers that will approve a FTEU campaign are T-Mobile, AT&T and perhaps Verizon (yes, “perhaps”). Whether or not U.S. Carriers will support a program from a alcohol brand is on a case-by-case basis with the fundamental thought that if the program encourages a user to drink then it most likely won’t be allowed, but then again there are exceptions to this too.
The Miller Light campaign is called Give It A Twist. The CTAs ask users to take a picture with an interesting twist and text the photo to the long-code 353833333224 for the weekly chance to win money and a trip to NYC. Conceptually we’ve done programs like this in the States, but instead of asking users to send the picture to a phone number the picture is typically sent to an email address. Yes, it would be much easier to have the picture sent via MMS to a short code, but the only Carriers in the U.S. that support a MMS to short code campaign are AT&T and Verizon. Sprint will allow MMS to short code but only if the brand will charge the end user to participate, thus a premium program only. Alltel, Cin Bell and Cricket are ‘maybes’.
Just as we’ve been hearing for the past 3 years, ‘experts’ are saying that this upcoming year is the year for mobile; we’ll see if the Carriers are listening because brands, agencies and creative kats are ready to start using the ubiquitous mobile device in conjunction with traditional marketing more frequently. However, it’s hard when programs such as FTEU, MMS to short codes, downloadable content, and even standard rate alerts services are not cross-carrier! (Yup, even standard rate alerts are not cross-carrier, ask Cricket for starters.)