The joy of SMS - Short Message Service
02-00-2003
By: Gary McManus
What do young people in Ireland spend much of their time doing these days? It's not smoking, it's not drugs, it's not drinking and it's not studying. It's texting. Or to be more accurate SMS messaging. This is their chosen method for notifying their peers of their immediate location or for short information exchanges.
The popularity of this SMS culture could be attributed to the fact that SMS conversations are excellent 'time-fillers' often used while in transit, or the fact that SMS conversations can be carried out in private even when the users are in public, noisy environments.
The brevity allowed in an SMS message allows the sender to initiate a cheap communications link-up without the need of starting a more expensive voice call. "c u l8r or flix 2night? or pint ??" are all messages that fit the SMS format perfectly.
Most of us are familiar with these message types, but what about "Linkin Park - Meteor now available in DeDisx"?
This is a message that targets a specific group with a dedicated message from a local source.
It can now be seen that, in addition to SMS being used for the everyday peer-to-peer messaging, it is also fast developing into a powerful marketing tool.
The European m-commerce market is set to soar in value from £201m in 1998 to 14.3 billion, with advertising accounting for almost a quarter of that revenue. (Datamonitor)
In studies it has been shown that Ireland has one of the highest mobile phone ownership rates in the world (more people in Ireland use a mobile phone than use the Internet) with the highest rate of mobile phone penetration to be found in the 15 - 35 age group.
Other instances of targeted messaging could vary from Airlines sending text alerts about flight schedule changes to public houses using text messages as a means to send drinks vouchers to their more valued customers.
One form of this direct marketing takes the form of opt-in marketing, whereby users subscribe to a certain service and are willing to pay a micro-payment to receive breaking news on their requested market.
Therefore, through the acceptance by the 15-35 age group to this type of advertising, this form of marketing is in the enviable position of having unrivalled access to an age group that previous media attempts have failed to make an impact on.
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