Leave a (Text) Message at the Tone

This isn’t our normal thought provoking blog post, but I thought it was worth a quick mention.

Has anyone checked out Radio Shack’s new commercial with Lance Armstrong?  Maybe it is because I have SMS on the brain 24X7, but I completely agree with Lance here.

Checking voicemail is always a pain, but the worst is when someone leaves a two minute message including all of the details you would have gone through in an actual phone conversation.  By the end of the message you usually have to call the person anyway to clarify the details, or (at minimum) listen to the voicemail a second time.

I would much rather someone shoot over a “Call me” text and we can jump on the phone and save both of us a little time.

Am I alone here? Let’s have a vote with the Mobile Demystified readers and I will post the results back here in a week.  Text VMAIL to 44144 to tell us your thoughts.

Cottonelle Wants to Know – Over or Under?

Cottonelle recently launched a multichannel campaign and I think they deserve some recognition for a job well done.  The campaign set out to answer one question – Over or Under?  And in doing that, they took a market (toilet paper) that is traditionally not very interactive and got people to engage with the brand and debate the question.

Well Done, Cottonelle!  You put a great multichannel campaign together that incorporated mobile, social networks, and WAP sites and you engaged the consumer.

The campaign allowed for voting via SMS, WAP, and online.  According to the brand, they found SMS to be extremely important because it allowed people to vote immediately and on the go after seeing outdoor ads (you can see an example of the outdoor ad to the right).

You could vote for yourself by texting UNDER or OVER to short code 30241, or by going online to: http://www.cottonellerollpoll.com/.

The campaign, of course, allowed for sharing your vote on Facebook and Twitter.

Additionally, Cottonelle incorporated mobile banners into the plan to drive consumers to a WAP site to vote at: http://VoteRollPoll.com.

The brand also allowed users to choose to receive the final tally announcing the winner at the end of voting – giving them another opportunity to connect with the consumer.

This is a great example of making marketing channels work together.  Other brands should take a lesson in consumer engagement done right from Cottonelle.

You can read more on the campaign at Mobile Marketer.