A recent study conducted by 3ple-Media found explored the idea of rewarding mobile phone users who relayed advertisements to others in exchange for a number of incentives. Free talk time minutes drew the most positive responses from respondents (34% most likely to pass along ads for this incentive, 33% quite likely), followed by free downloadable music tracks (29% most likely, 30% quite likely). Free SMS also received a relatively strong response (40% most likely, 11% quite likely).
The question posed and the results are interesting, though one has to wonder how incredibly annoying this notion put into practice could be.
Western Europe and Asia-Pacific are two regions in the world that experience heavy text-messaging usage, and they are also the two areas of the world that exhibit the strongest suspicion of text message advertisements. Only 12% of respondents in Western Europe said they trusted text message ads, while 17% said the same in Asia-Pacific. Similar numbers could probably be expected in the U.S.
Another aspect of 3ple-Media’s study, titled “Making Multimedia Work,” shows that 96% of respondents would consider unsolicited mobile messages from brands/media to be spam, while this number drops dramatically to 59% if the messages came from operators. Unsolicited mobile messages coming from other sources that contain desirable offers garnered an even smaller 44% response, while all other forms of these messages would cause 89% of recipients to consider them as spam.
It seems that the U.S.’s relatively mobile advertisement message-free days are nearing some sort of end. As operators and brands continue to consider furthering their mobile advertisement experiments, users should expect a slightly higher level of discomfort akin to the early days of email spam, if they have not already.
In light of the above figures, operators and advertisers would be wise to find the least intrusive and irritating way to get their messages and offers shared amongst a broad audience of mobile users through the use of text messages.
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