| Thumbs up, at last: Thanks to American Idol, text messaging is finally taking off in the US. And the |
| Monday, 28 July 2003 | |
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FT Creative Business, 29 July 2003 - For an nation that prides itself on technological leadership, the US was surprisingly late to the text messaging game. But it is making up for lost time. The number of texts sent in the US is expected to increase dramatically from 8.1bn messages in 2002, according to technology research group Ovum. Such figures are often disputed and hard to collate, but experts say about 1bn texts are sent in the US per month. The watershed came when AT & T wireless, the nation's second-largest mobile phone group by revenues, sponsored text voting for the reality TV series American Idol. More than 7.5m American Idol related texts were sent during the contest, and a third of the senders had never texted before. The final was the largest single text-messaging event handled by a mobile phone carrier in the world.Text is the No.1 data application being advertised to US mobile phone users, according to research group Telephia. American wireless carriers spent $40m on text messaging ads in the first quater of the year, double the amount spent in the previous three months. Andre Dahan, president of mobile mutimedia services at AT & T Wireless, says: "The country has embraced interactive text messaging with more fervour than anyone expected." The early success is whetting the appetite of text marketing companies based in Europe, where texting campaigns have already involved tens of millions of consumers. On the back of American Idol, Aerodeon,the UK mobile marketing specialists that helped mastermind text voting for the series, has now opened an office in the US. Bable Media, which tests game applications for Vodafone also seees growth. Pamir Gelenbe, director of Corporate Business Development at rival company Flytxt, is equally bullish, partly because the US is still far behind the rest of Europe in using text messaging, but also because US consumers are more comfortable with direct marketing campaigns. "The spend per capita on direct marketing in the US is three times bigger than in the UK." But there is also a great deal of hype at work. Even at the top end of expectations, US text usage in 2003 will be less than a quarter of the levels in western Europe. More importantly, there is a diffferent attitude to mobile phones in the US. Americans have always nattered more on their handsets than their counterparts in Europe and Asia. This is largely due to US calling plans, which include large "buckets" of free minutes for voice calls but charged extra for data services such as texts. Now that texting has arrived in the US, it faces a number of home-grown alternatives. Most Americans under 18, a prime demographic for text messages, are already hooked on instant messaging, where short messges are sent between personal computers. Another hot trend in the US is the unlikely revival of walkie-talkie services, but this time attached to a modern mobile handset. Callers using a specially adapted phone can get an instant connection to pre-selected numbers by pressing a button on the side of the side of the handset. The system, called push-to-talk, was devised by Nextel Communications and Motorola for professional customers, such as plumbers and cab drivers. But it has recently gained kudos among American kids, and most US carriers are expected to have handsets capable of walkie-talkie calls by the end of the year. Michael Doherty, vice-president of the telecoms practice at Ovum, says these rival services could kill text in the US in its infancy. "It is almost to little, too late, he says. "While text is taking off, it is just whetting users appetites for the next big thing." But text marketing experts are ready to adapt. In Europe and the US, multimedia messaging incorporating works, colour picture and even sound is starting to take off. While in Europe this is likely to complement text messaging, in the US because it is so far behind, some phone users are expecting to migrate straight to picture messaging. Andrew Jones, president of Aerodeon, is already working on more targeted picture messaging marketing campaigns in the UK, a trend he believes will export well to the US. With one of his clients - a nightclub owner - Jones has collected more than 50,000 telephone numbers of UK clubbers who own the latest picture phones. With pictures and sound, he believes the only limit to the next wave of marketing will be the imagination. © Copyright Flytxt Ltd 2006. Unauthorized use of any content constitutes a material breach. |
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