• by Phil Leggiere , June 4, 2003

Throughout much of the world, text messaging via SMS (Short Message Service) has rapidly moved well beyond novelty to become a major pop cultural, commercial, and marketing phenomenon. In Japan where over 90% of teens and college students have data-equipped cell phones, "texting" is so ubiquitous that the hippest Tokyo youth are known as the "thumb tribes." In Scandanavia "textstata" (as wireless texting is known) has become as synonymous with youth culture as rock 'n roll.

While wireless data has spread like wildfire nearly everywhere else, the American market, to the chagrin of major wireless carriers, has thus far been late to the party.

"Looking at what's been going on in Asia and Europe, we've been waiting for the right spark to put SMS on the map here," says Jeremy Pemble, marketing spokesperson for AT&T Wireless. "We see the technology not just as a killer app for people to use in everyday communication, but as an interactive marketing tool which can involve consumers and programmers in radically new ways. We studied closely what's been going on overseas, especially in Europe where on MTV and VH1 music fans vote all the time with their cell phones for their favorite artists and songs and we knew the audience was here as well. But nothing had excited them enough yet."

To make up for lost time AT&T in partnership with Fox TV began in the summer of 2002 to experiment with ways of bring texting, TV and American youth culture together. Their vehicle of choice was sponsorship of a then fledgling new "reality series" called American Idol, in which aspiring entertainers competed live each week to become America's most popular amateur entertainer.

AT&T Wireless started its sponsorship on a small-scale, primarily as a venue for traditional ads and product placement, primarily focusing its promotion on its conventional cell phone voice services. Even during American Idol's first season last year, however, the carrier sought ways of slowly introducing its data features to the show's massive 18 to 30 viewership, by making such novelties as online polls and American Idol trivia questions available to AT&T subscribers.

Encouraged both by the show's incredible popularity and the enthusiastic response of American Idol watchers, AT&T Wireless determined to use American Idol's spring 2003 season as an opportunity to get less traditional and more creative in its approach to sponsorship. Its strategy was to become the first wireless carrier in the U.S. to support cell phone interaction between viewers and their favorite show.

AT&T contracted with Redmond, Washington-based mobile media company Mobliss to enable viewers to vote via short-text messages over Mobliss's SMS MoTV platform, using the short code "Idols01." In addition to text voting viewers are also able to answer sweepstakes trivia questions, participate in on-air polls and comment about show's host Ryan Seacrest, contestants they liked or hated, or the opinions and attitudes of the show's hosts, Paula, Randy or the infamous Simon in real-time. AT&T Wireless subscribers who have SMS-enabled phones also could register to opt-in to receive regular updates of American Idol content. Those who signed up were offered an average of four content prompts per week throughout the series. The campaign was publicized through national in-store promotions at AT&T Wireless retail outlets and direct mail to AT&T subscribers. American Idol aired on Tuesday and Wednesday each week from Janaury 28-May 21. At the end of each one-hour episode on Tuesday viewers were exhorted by Ryan Seacrest to vote for their favorite contestants using the text feature on their AT&T cell phones. Each Wednesday night in a half hour follow-up results of the previous night's vote were announced.

Results surprised even the most optimistic hopes of the sponsors. "Everyone in the wireless industry had known text-messaging had a potential market in the U.S., especially among the young," explains Pemble. "But until this campaign none of us had really broken through and crossed that threshold into mainstream awareness. American Idol was the catalyst. You had a huge audience of 20 million including the greatest concentration anywhere on TV of young people."

Over one million people voted for contestants in the first eight episodes of season two. People also used their phones to sign-up for regular alerts about the show, to answer poll and trivia questions and, perhaps most important of all, to send messages to their friends about what was going on on the show. In just one evening (the show of April 8) American Idol viewers sent over 2.5 million messages. Peak traffic immediately following the show exceeded one thousand messages per second, according to Mobliss. What was perhaps most amazing of all, Pemble believes, is that nearly one-third of the people sending messages for American Idol had never used text-messaging before.

Although enhancement of brand recognition and knowledge about text messaging feature was the main reason for the sponsorship, AT&T obtained other benefits. The campaign was a direct sales revenue generator, with millions of people spending an average of ten cents per message sent.

Pemble believes the lessons of the American Idol sponsorship extend beyond the campaign's immediate goals. "We think we've broken new ground here both in terms of wireless product advertising and maybe even more importantly in changing people's perception of what a TV sponsorship can do." "Traditional product sponsorships," he explains, "have introduced their products into shows, but they've been extraneous to what was going on. What's really unique about this campaign is that our text messaging service is not only part of the show, but had a direct impact on the show's results. By having their own AT&T account viewers could move from being mere spectators to actually making a difference on how the show turned out."

Pemble also says that AT&T's own phones have been "ringing off the hook" since American Idol II began with promoters anxious to forge partnerships to use AT&T messaging in the context of their own campaigns.

"You'll soon be seeing a lot of different spin-offs from what we've started with Idol," he predicts. "A large base of wireless text users opens up whole new ways to do contests, sweepstakes and other call to action campaigns for all kinds of different products and in all kinds of venues. We see no reason wireless response can't be just as integral a part of radio promotions as it is on live TV. Imagining people voting for their favorite song or singer from their cell phone."