One of my favorite shows on television right now has to be Bravo’s “Flipping Out”, featuring my favorite Orange County born obsessive compulsive, Jeff Lewis. Jeff’s crazy antics and offensive behavior keeps viewers, like myself, highly entertained. I get so frustrated with Jeff’s ridiculously offensive comments, that I find myself yelling at the television set. Well Bravo must have felt the same way because they created an engaging opportunity for viewers to voice their opinions publicly.
During Tuesdays hour long episode, viewers had the opportunity to text SAY + their name + comment to shortcode 27286 (BRAVO) to see their comments displayed on the television screen. Obviously, I had to try this.
There I sat, impatiently waiting to see my message displayed across my television set and nothing. Clearly, this campaign must be working. The networks live voting is approximately 50 percent mobile to 50 percent Web voting. I would love to know the kind of traffic Bravo receives for each mobile campaign per show.
Bravo is a great example of a television station incorporating mobile, including SMS polls, text to screen, mobile fan clubs, as well as a WAP site that features exclusive content, into their marketing campaign.
I have worked on several text to screen campaigns before and I always find them very successful for both the client and the user. It gives viewers the chance to really connect with a brand, as opposed to receiving a simple alert or tip. Now please don’t misunderstand, I am not saying that alerts aren’t effective, I just believe in the power of user engagement.
A recent campaign Textopoly had the pleasure of creating, incorporated a text to screen component for Augusts KROQ concert at the Epicenter in Pomona. Users could text in keyword SHOUT plus their message to see it displayed on the big screen. The campaign did great, with close to 800 concert goers texting in to see their shout out!
Want to try a text to screen for yourself? Check out Textopoly’s revamped website and text FEEL plus your message to 99134 to see your thoughts posted! (Message&Date rates may apply.)
Oh and just in case you were wondering, during “Flipping Out” I text in “Jeff Lewis is my Hero”.
