Winstar Bets On SMS
- by John Gaffney , September 4, 2002
Winstar will work with an SMS provider called Adversoft, based in San Diego, to deliver ads via text messaging to cell phones. Right now SMS technology, which has a cleaner and more agile user interface than current cell phone messaging, is popular in Europe and Asia. The problem in the US, is that different service providers use varying protocol to deliver SMS messaging. Standards for delivery are in development. Still, Interep Interactive COO John Durham, whose company oversees Winstar and Perfect Circle, says the time is right to pitch SMS as an ad platform.
“I was in London outside Tower Records recently and I couldn’t believe the amount of people using SMS messaging on their phones,” he said. “Anyone who has seen it from a user point of view knows that it will take off here in the US.”
Interep has already worked with Adversoft on a wireless campaign for Sony Pictures Ali. In addition to entertainment products, Durham expects SMS to be attractive to consumer packaged goods advertisers and airlines.
According to Interep, more than 1 billion SMS messages are sent every month in the United States and growth is tracking on the same trajectory as Europe and Asia. In addition to Ali, Adversoft was successful in recently targeting the teen and young adult movie fan market with a promotion for “XXX” where users could participate in a “XXX” secret spy mission that included downloading ringtones and interacting from their mobile phones with text-message-based quizzes and polls.
Jupiter also reports that since the beginning of 2001, all US operators have heavily pushed text messaging, but consumer adoption only took off when SMS had interoperability among most carriers in spring of 2002. In fact, use of two-way SMS in the US is now nearly three times that of the wireless Internet, while the number of consumers receiving one-way SMS (e.g., sports, news, and flight updates) is double the number of those who browse content.
