5 More Inspiring SMS Campaigns

One of the most effective ways to learn anything is by example (as you'll know if you've ever had children or dogs!). If you've been struggling to see how you can utilise the power of scheduled SMS messages in your SME promotions, today we check out 5 inspiring examples of cool campaigns from the corporate world.

WKD Peel Off and Win

This youth oriented drink SME marketing campaign was such a success partially because of its target market (precisely the people that are most comfortable with text messaging and most likely to text and win), but also because of its dual purpose.

The 'text to win' competitions that we explored in our last post (like this WKD promotion) are actually of immense value to the retailer … because in the fine print of the competition you can state that the respondents need to agree to having their number added to a database for future promotions. So, you use the text to win campaign to get the numbers, then devise a new campaign once you have a database of interested buyers.

Wrigley's Extra

The execution of this campaign was pretty standard 'text to win' formula - but the details really made it a hit! There were 130 million packs of Extra with codes printed, and the pries were unusual - access to MTV parties and music CDs.

Muller

This was an unusual one, and really needed proprietary scheduled SMS technology to make it happen - it allowed users to send a Valentine's message along with a Muller love heart symbol with a purchase. Mainly aimed at branding - but neat and unusual, and a great success!

Clinique

An excellent example of a company really putting the power of simplicity to work in their scheduled text messages! Consumers had to text in their responses from a full-page advertorial survey (giving the company plenty of business intelligence). The respondents received a coded text voucher that could be redeemed at a Clinique retail outlet for a sample pack matching their skin type.

Hasbro

When the customised version of Monopoly came out, users of Sony Ericsson T68s received a three-slide colour clip designed to push the new game. Not a big campaign, and pretty standard advertising, but considering it is probably the first multimedia campaign they must get props!

Inspiring SMS Campaigns

SME marketing is a very multi-faceted exercise nowadays, consisting of far more than the newspaper/radio/television golden trio of the 90s! Now web-based campaigns, blogs, search engine optimisation and scheduling text messages for marketing have all become viable and cost effective means of branding and drawing customers to your business. It can be difficult to see the way forward with scheduled SMS message promotions, though, so today we aim to lead by example. We're checking out 4 of the biggest and best SMS advertising campaign ideas!

McDonalds and Monsters Inc Text to Win campaign

McDonalds has the big budget to make sure they don't have to do anything by halves, so it's not surprising that their very first scheduled SMS campaign went exceptionally well. Consumers had to text in a code on their box of French fries to see if they had won a prize, either small instant style prizes or major ones.

Guinness and the World Cup

When you are able to capitalisee on the buzz surrounding a big event and tie it inextricably to your scheduled SMS campaign, the results can be massive! A Nightfly-led campaign involved Guinness, St Patricks Day, World Cup soccer and an Asda beer promotion. It was a crazy sort of campaign - some of the main items on offer included wigs of David Beckham's Mohawk and Bobby Charlton's sweep-over - but around 49% of the 10,000 people that received an offer redeemed it!

UIP

This SME promotion campaign is one to think about for when your budget is much bigger, and you're far more used to scheduled SMS message marketing … but is so inspiring we couldn’t leave it out! The teen spook film Long Time Dead was promoted with a text-message intelligent Ouija board that responded to questions like 'What is the meaning of life'!! The average respondent sent 20 messages about the campaign and contacted the board 3 times.

Cadbury's Text to Win

This scheduled SMS message campaign ran during the 2002 Commonwealth Games on 78 million packets of selected Cadbury chocolate bars, with each pack containing a special code to text in and check if you’d won a prize.