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Loading ...A recent New York Times article reported that Americans are more receptive to text message advertising than are Europeans, in spite of the greater prevalence of text message ads in European markets.
Having recently relocated to Europe, I can attest to the idea that Europeans use text messaging (”SMS” over here) far more than Americans, and they have been doing so for some time. (When I started text messaging in the US, it was still considered “creepy”) Text messaging is an efficient and unobtrusive way to convey information to your friends, family, and colleagues.
I remember first being exposed to pay-per-ringtone or pay-per-joke MMS and SMS services on a trip to Europe back in the early 2000’s, and wondering what idiots could possibly be signing up for these services. Surely there couldn’t be many people who thought this was a good idea. After those services however, I noticed an even more nefarious scheme - subscription services, whereby you pay anywhere from $0.99 to $10 or more to have jokes, ringtones, wallpapers, etc. sent to you on a monthly basis. I was convinced this was some European phenomenon.
To my surprise, recently these same services have surfaced in the US, as evidenced by the obnoxious Jamster advertisements on TV and at the top of your AIM window. It is still quite unfathomable to me that ANYONE pays for these services, until I realize that a very large and growing portion of the cell phone user market in the US and abroad does not pay their own bill. I am speaking, of course, of teenagers and children who’s parents are paying their cell phone bills, and who likely often pay it without looking at specific charges.
I can only hope that the same idiots who are paying for a crappy joke to be delivered to their phone every day are “receptive” to text message advertising. I am quite sure I won’t be receptive to any text message advertising, and I may even send the bill for $0.02 for a received message to whatever company has the audacity to send me an ad via SMS. I’ll happily pay for the $0.41 First Class stamp, on principle alone.
In all seriousness though, can anyone convincingly defend text message advertising? Seems almost akin to fax advertising. And can anyone name the demographic for subscription crappy jokes SMS’ed to you daily?
Filed under: Conversation Marketing
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Marketing trends point to how customers are becoming more segmented. Anytime technology creates a way for businesses to market more precisely, that is good for the economy. Also, people can opt out of text message advertisements at any time. It’s purely permission based.