Archive for the ‘Text Message News’ Category

Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign is taking a bit from the 2008 success of his opponent Barrack Obama who famously announced his vice-presidential running mate Joe Biden by text message.  It’s good to see that Romney is taking text message marketing more seriously than John McCain whose social media efforts in 2008 were an epic fail and helped give the election to Barrack Obama.

Mitt Romney’s text message leads you to having the ability to download his app.

In Spain, text message use exploded during its Euro 2012 victory over Italy.

Winners text more than losers.  At least when it comes to sports.

During the Euro 2012 final between Spain and Italy, there were some interesting trends.

• At kickoff, text message traffic dropped by 40% in both countries as fans were glued to the event.
• After the first goal by Spain, traffic shot up by 120%.
• After the second goal by Spain, traffic shot up by 200% as the Spanish citizens began sensing victory.
• During half time, Spanish traffic increased by 25% while Italian traffic remained average.
• On goal number three by Spain, traffic increased by 175%.
• Goal number four by Spain saw a 30% increase.

Clearly, people like sharing their successes via text message much more so than their failures.

In the continuing list of ridiculous lawsuits, the US District Court of Southern California has thrown out a case where the plaintiff wanted to sue Taco Bell for sending him confirmation of his opt-out.  Just another case of a consumer wanting to make money off of a big company for doing what it was supposed to do!

The Taco Bell case confirmed the need for a reply message when a consumer opt-outs of a text message marketing program.

In Ibey vs. Taco Bell Corp, the plaintiff agreed to consent to receive text messages from Taco Bell.  Later, the plaintiff wished to opt-out of the Taco Bell database and texted ”STOP” to do so.  At this point, Taco Bell’s text message marketing system replied with a confirmation message indicating that the plaintiff had indeed opted out.

The plaintiff brought suit, alleging that the confirmation message was in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act on the grounds that it “constituted an unsolicited advertisement placed via an automatic telephone dialing system.”

The Court found that the confirmation message was not in fact “unsolicited telemarketing.”

At 84444.com, we have customers that often consider that they should not send a receipt confirmation message in an interactive text message marketing program.  In fact, it is one of hte features that we offer to those customers that may wish to save money from not responding to incoming texts.

Such a practice, however, is almost always a bad idea.  When a consumer sends an interactive text, if they don’t get a response quickly, what do you think they do?  They send another one!  You need to give them the confirmation that the interactive text worked in the first place.  If not, they will think that they haven’t opted-out of the database and they will be even madder.

Read more here about text message legal cases that were legitimate and that businesses should be aware of.

Text GLEE to 94444

Lately, we’ve been noticing a lot of text messages coming to our 84444.com platform that use the keyword “GLEE.”

Now, I know that the television show GLEE is tremendously popular, but why all of the text messages?

Well, we’ve apparently found the answer:  Text GLEE to 94444

“GLEEks can text GLEE to 94444 to receive weekly never-before-seen bonus material, New Directions set lists, a special message from Chris Colfer (“Kurt Hummel”) and much more for the GLEE fan on-the-go.”  Apparently, this isn’t the only show that Fox is promoting via mobile.  It is also providing a similar service for the shows HOUSE, NEW GIRL, BONES, and FRINGE.  According to the Fox Terms & Conditions, joining the mobile fan club can get you up to 15 text messages per month from the organization.

Fat Finger Texting

It’s not suprising that viewers would be texting to the wrong short code number.  After all, the screen is pretty small and it’s easy to hit the wrong number, especially when its as close as the 8 is to the 9 on the small screen.

So, for all of you GLEEks out there, be sure that you use the correct short code number, 94444.

For those of you that wish to be involved in text message marketing for your business or organization, however, you’ve come to the right place when you text RESULTS to 84444.

Not sure that I would have used outdoor highway advertising for this type of advertisement.  But, I do buy the Don’t Text and Drive philosophy.

Perhaps a different medium would have worked better for this advertisement.

We do a lot of things on your mobile phones other than talk.  But, of all of the things that we do on our mobile phones, the thing we do most is send text messages.

Nearly 80% of us send text messages on our cell phones.

(Source – ComScore)

69.4% of Canadians use text message marketing, according to a study by ComScore.  Canadians use text messaging slightly less than those in the States and considerably less than those in the European Union 5 countries.

Advanced Telecom Services is now operating its text message marketing solution in Canada under 84444.ca.

ComScore study shows that 74.3% of American mobile phone users are using text messages.  That compares to 69.2% in Canada and trails the EU5 by a considerable margin at 84.4%.

Eli Manning at Super Bowl 46

Not everybody was a winner at Super Bowl 46, but AT&T Mobile certainly was.  In a post from John Donovan, senior executive vice president, he reported what happened at Lucas Oil Stadium, in addition to the Giants 21-17 victory.

AT&T customers attending the Super Bowl made a lot of phone calls — 75, 204 to be exact.  But, the number of calls was a small fraction of the total text messages that were sent and received by the fans at Lucas Oil Stadium.  Super Bowl fans attending the event sent and received 722,296 text messages during the game.  And, that’s in addition to all of the mobile marketing events at the Super Bowl.

No doubt, a lot of fans at the stadium wanted to share this event with as many friends and family as possible.  The numbers tell the story of just how integral sending and receiving a text message has become in our lives.  And, the importance of mobile in general.

Total customer usage of data was equally impressive: 215 GB were used–the highest data usage ever seen from a single sporting event.  Fants were posting lots of video and sending pictures to those of us watching in our family rooms instead of in Indianapolis.

AT&T’s efforts to enhance the user experience in Indianapolis were impressive.  It launched a Wi-Fi Hot Zone with 15 access points and added capacity to 200 cell sites throughout the Indy market.  It also deployed 9 COWs (Cells on Wheels) around the stadium.

Text Message SPAM

At 84444.com, and Advanced Telecom Services, we hate SPAM text messages as much as you do.  A business or organization that sends SPAM text messages is not only violating the law, but also making text message marketing in general much less effective.

Therefore, as a public service to our readers, we are providing an easy online method for contacting the FCC about unwanted text message SPAM.  Please click here to report text message SPAM to the proper authorities in the United States.

You will be doing all of us a favor.