| How to tap into the teen text market by Todd Tran. |
| Sunday, 31 August 2003 | |
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International Journal of Advertising & Marketing To Children July - September 2003 - Todd Tran is Director of Business Development at Flytxt. Working with the world's leading brands in developing innovative mobile marketing programmes, Todd leads Flytxt's business development effort. Texting - as far as teens are concerned, it's why God gave us opposable thumbs. Thus nowhere is SMS marketing more well-suited than to the teen market, and hence to the brands that serve it. Todd Tran shows us how to identify the potential perils and pitfalls, how to avoid them, and how to reap the rich rewards that responsible SMS marketing can deliver.Youth marketing by SMS is a sector with big rewards, but one littered with traps for the unwary. There is a great deal of restrictive legislation and much controversy, yet selling to kids remains a seductive proposition. They have some disposable income, a keen sense of the 'next big thing' and peer pressure that equates to an irresistible urge for ownership. For the majority of young people, text messaging is now the preferred way to communicate. According to the Childwise Monitor report, 90% of teenagers use text messaging in preference to talking on their mobiles. Market research carried out by Flytxt showed that when teenagers where asked whether, if they had to choose, they would rather loose the voice or text functionality of their mobile phones, the over- whelming majority said they would rather lose voice. So, why do teens text? Texting is more than just a function, it is a vital part of their lives and their medium of choice. Not only can it be used to convey the latest gossip and information, it is also and ideal way for anonymously chatting, sharing secrets, and of course instigating romance! SMS has become increasingly essential for co-ordinating social lives for people young and indeed old. The statistics speak for themselves: 40% of 7-11-year-olds own or have access to a mobile phone (Jupiter), and UK kids spend a staggering £100,000 a day on text messaging. It is obvious that the SMS channel has great potential. Brands have embraced SMS in order to target the youth market, which has traditionally been very elusive. Using SMS, marketers find it surprisingly easy to engage with youngsters by communicating with them through a medium and in a language that they understand. Using SMS marketing responsibly The marketing industry, however, needs to be very careful when using the mobile medium as a marketing tool, particularly when running campaigns targeted at kids and young teens. Not only should we make special efforts to protect children, but we should also be motivated by the desire to safeguard the future of our industry and, although less significant (but by no means irrelevant) ensure the success of individual campaigns. Specifically, marketers have a moral obligation to protect children from marketing that either leads them to incur excessive costs via premium rate SMS, or exposes them to adult or otherwise inappropriate content, or sells directly to them. Flytxt has a list of guidelines that provide clear direction to clients when designing a campaign. * Campaigns must have a permission-based opt-in approch, and an easy and free opt-out route. * Brands must also avoid marketing to under-12s, and must request the parental permission of under-14s. * Promotions must not offer 'life-changing' prizes. A free car trip or trip around the world may be appealing for the average 16-year-old, yet from a moral perspective is not appropriate. There are also specific rules for premium text messaging (brands can now charge consumers a premium fee on their mobile phone bill on top of the cost of sending and receiving a text message) that raises a whole new discussion. it is best practice to avoid the use of premium rate text altogether when targeting younger people. If, however, a brand chooses to use premium rate text, marketers should make subscribers aware of how much they have spent, for example by including the fee prominently on a print ad that advertisers a premiun rate service. Luckily the majority of young teenagers are on pre-paid phones, and for this reason it is unlikely they will get themselves into a situation where they can't pay their bill at the end of the month (unless they are using their parents phone of course!). Another real problem marketers face is exactly how old the person at the other end of the text message really is. It is very difficult fo the marketer to verify the age of a child via SMS/IVR/email/web. If parental consent via the medium is requested, it is also difficult to verify that the sender is actually the parent. In addition to industry-regulated guidelines, all promotions need to obey the law. The EU Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communication is likely to become law in the UK in October 2003 and it specifically refers to email and SMS. It calls for all electronic communication to be on an 'opt-in' basis and stands in contrast to existing laws around direct mail, which can be sent on an opt-out basis. However, the Directive does make one exception to the opt-in rule: in cases where an 'existing customer relationship' stands, communication can be sent regarding similar products or services, using an opt-out mechanisim, instead of the opt-out one. Generally speaking, the difference between opt-in and opt-out is that with opt-in, consumers are required to 'tick the box', whereas with opt-out they have to 'untick the box' in order to not be part of a service. For example, with opt-out the default is that consumers want to hear from a brand, with opt-in they have to explicitly request information. While we believe this is a good development for the industry, and one that will not be overly restrictive, it remains our belief that it is more important to focus on an easy opt-out route for consumers. Otherwise, it is easy for companies to abide by government legislation, yet practise bad marketing techniques; for example, if the opt-out route given involves going to a website, searching for a number, waiting in a queue, to be told you have to write to an address - a ridiculous example, I know, but on that some companies have tried in the past! Although the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) view the youth market as a vulnerable segment, it does acknowledge that this is a key target market, because it is a key user market. The MMA is soon to release a set of guidelines advising on the use of SMS in a marketing context when targeting children/young adults. There are other various industry bodies, such as the DMA code and ICSTIS, which regulate the premium rate industry; again, their positions should be adhered to in order to abide by best practice. How SMS can help brands Providing marketers use the medium responsibly and take particular care when targeting younger audiences, SMS can help companies rejuvinate their brand values, tap into different target markets.... and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many of the organisations that we work with successfully market their products to the youth market via SMS. The following case studies show how this can be done. Macmillian children's books Use of SMS technology by Macmillian Children's books is a great illustration of a brand creating a buzz around a new product. When promoting the new series of children's books, the Princess Diary Club trilogy, readers could join the exclusive SMS club by signing up via ads in Mizz, Sugar, and Shout magazines. Budding young princesses texted in their date of birth and the reason why they deserved royal treatment. Girls under the age of 12 could not take part in the campaign, and girls who said they were under this age were sent a message saying that they were too young to be a princess yet. Prizes, such as a £500 Princess Makeover Shopping Spree at Selfridges, were up for grabs, as well as exclusive unpublished snippets from the new diaries and top tips on how to be a princess. For example '1. Get Body Guard 2. Ensure ur called Ur Highness 3. Don't bite nails'. Readers were also asked to reply to questions such as 'Dear Princesss: Mia & Lilly r best friends since 4ever. Txt & tell us the top 3 best things about ur best friend. U could win a sparkly eye shadow'. The aim of the club was to help members get into the spirit of the books and maintain their interest in them. Smash Hits Another example of a highly successful text club aimed at younger people is the Smash Hits text club campaign, which is ongoing today and has been running for the past 2 and a half years. Research showed that an overwhelming 96% of members are enjoying being part of the club. The Poptxt club has an opt-in database of loyal and happy members, who trust the Smash Hits brand and are regular readers and furthermore are 'brand heroes'. The success of the campaign to date is due to members being rewarded regularly with exclusive gossip, offers and competitions, as well as being given the option to opt-out at any time to keep in line with regulatory standards. Advertisers who have also successfully used the Smash Hits Poptext club to advertise to their member base include Wella, Alliance & Leicester, Hallmark and Barclays. In line with the law and regulations we have already described, messages from the Poptxt club cost subscribers no more than 12p. Again they have to be over 12 to sign up, and it is very easy to unsubscribe at any time by replying 'STOP' to messages received. Barclays Bank Another popular youth-focuses promotion, run by the Haygarth Group and Barclays, was an exlusive SMS game through Flytxt to support Barclays youth accounts: BarclayPlus and Barclays Young Persons Account. It was called the GomoVmad promotion. The main aims of this promotion were to raise awareness of the accounts, and to maximise Barclays chance of converting those involved in the game into new customers. But another aim was to create a ground-breaking communication tool for a retail bank and reach Barclays youth audience through the medium that is most relevant and involving for them. The promotion was aimed at 14-17 year olds and invited 5000 players to 'GomoVmad' by answering 10 questions over a four-week period to get a chance of winning an amazing holiday for four people to Hollywood or one of 25 movie related runners-up prizes. A critical element to the campaign was the ability to deliver a multi-stage SMS competition that allowed the tracking of each player's progress through the game. Flytxt's sophisticated technology platform also meant that unique text messages could be sent to each player of the game, depending on how many question they answered correctly. In order to maximise the reach of the campaign, a viral element was introduced through which players were urged to forward a message to their friends to bring them into the GomoVmad quiz as well. At the end of the campaign, anyone that had taken part in the game, either by SMS or through the website, was sent an SMS message or a web voucher that they could take into a branch of Barclays to claim a free Waterstone's discount voucher giving them 33% off movie-related titles. The game was also supported with a website where budding 'moV*s' (movie stars) could read all about the game, the prizes, and the concurrent in-branch promotion of the same accounts. One of the key benefits for Barclays was cut-through: they were able to reach an extremely difficult-to-target audience - the youth market. Other benefits included instant accountability, audience fit, and, ultimately, increased footfall. The campaign had some outstanding results. There was a 5.8% opt-in rate with 1877 teen players taking part in the game. Barclays experienced a 157% rise in student account applications during the period that the promotion was running. Warner Village Cinemas Another highly successful promotion was around the highly popular Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Warner Village Cinemas, together with Flytxt and Ignition Marketing Group, launched an SMS campaign to drive cinema-goers to see the blockbuster. The campaign aimed to build up a database of movie-goers for future campaigns. By using SMS as the medium, Warner Village Cinemas aimed to particularly appeal to teenagers. The campaign was designed to encourage teenagers to text in for the chance of winning tickets to the preview screening of Harry Potter. They also go the chance to win an annual movie pass if the pre-booked tickets over the phone. The Harry Potter SMS campaign helped to turn SMS messaging into a family experience, with both parents and teenagers being invited to text-in to win free tickets. Kiss 100 Kiss 100's 'HeySexy' campaign targeted a slightly older, savvy teen audience. Kiss 100 is Emap's radio station for young London, dedicated to helping you 'livesexy'. The objective of the many Kiss SMS activities run on a frequent basis is to offer incentives to members of the text club so that they listen to Kiss at certain times. This is managed through a mixture of 'soft' relationship building texts and 'hard' 'call to listen' messages, using incentives to attract more members to the HeySexy Club, and also focusing on 'relationship building' with existing target audiences. The Birthday Kiss is a special birthday text sent to every HeySexy member on the morning of their birthday. (Bam Bam is one of the Kiss 100 breakfast show DJs.) Responses included: 'Thanx 4 the txt Bam - it made my Day!' 'Hiya Bam thnks a lot 4 the msg. Can't believe u knew it's my birthday!' 'Thanks 4 the b day txt. I had a blinding day.' The New Year's Kiss invited HeySexy members to send a New Year's Kiss to a mate or someone they fancied. On New Year's Day the chosen friend was sent a voice message that played automatically when the phone was answered in person or voice mail and they then received a follow-up message telling them who had sent them their kiss. Sticking with the romance theme, later in the year members were offered the chance to send an anonymous text message to their Valentine; they responded with their message and their number to send it to. The results of this campaign show Kiss listners willingness to engage in promotions and spread the word about their favourite station. The anonymous nature of text messaging means that listners can be daring and mischievous. The results of the anonymous Valentine campaign speak for themselves. It had a total response of 5512, which equates to 10%. For Hallowe'en 2003, a push-SMS message was sent encouraging members to play a trick or treat on their mates. A treat was a free ring tone and a trick was a belching noise followed by a Kiss jingle. From a CRM perspective, mechanisms, such as DJ-personalised messages and studio text-ins with bounce-back from the DJ on-air, have proved to be very successful in engaging the teenage listener. Rather than just listening to their favourite radio show, they can now become part of it. The result of this for Kiss is an SMS community that is growing 30-40% every year with limited erosion. The 'HeySexy' database currently holds the details of 60,000 young, loyal and responsive listeners - ideal for advertisers and promoters - and when it asks them to ineract, it attracts an average response rate of 13%. Sneak Another EMAP brand using SMS on a regular basis is teen gossip magazine, Sneak. The launch of the title was supported by a fun, interactive SMS campaign designed to build excitement around the launch by giving potential Sneak readers the chance to experience the magazine before they bought it. An interesting way that the brand communicated with its new and potential readers was to convey the essence of the brand in 160 characters. In doing this, the magazine promoted viral spread and added a further focus on communicating Sneak's themes. As part of the Gossip Challenge, members of the Sneak SMS club also reveived two weekly Sneak messages. Each week, Sneak SMS club members were invited to vote on the content of the magazine's next edition and also reveive on message with the latest gossip on their favourite stars, e.g. 'Sneak: S Club's Rachel ran up £800 fone bill in 1mnth callin boyfriend Jeremy Edwards whilst working abroad!' JC from NSYNC admitted he snogs like a fish + is proud of it!'. Sport Relief The ground-breaking Sports Relief campaign by Comic Relief marked several significant firsts for the wireless marketing industry, as this was the first time a UK charity had ever used SMS in its fundraising activity. It was also the largest reverse-billed SMS service to be executed across all four major UK network operators using one common short-code. Young and old sports fanatics texted in to win a lifetime opportunity trip around the world visiting various sporting events. Interestingly, the campaign, illustrated how entry by SMS and IVR varied, and on days when it was only possible to vote by IVR, rather than cannibalising the text votes, there were actual less entries altogether. Conclusion The rules of engagement of marketing to young people are simple: communicate with your audience in a language that they understand, keep learing through each interaction, and apply that learning. Once you open a channel of communication, you cannot close it - users text back all the time. You have to adapt, and each message must be relevant. © Copyright Flytxt Ltd 2006. Unauthorized use of any content constitutes a material breach. |
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