Continuing with a very interesting study case of Cingular's long success with sponsoring the "American Idol" TV show, today I want to present the huge success Cingular had in the SMS arena. In case you've missed the first part of the Cingular study case - just follow the link.
For many years, the US was a backwater of mobile messaging in comparison to other regions of the world. However, looking at Figure 1 reveals a remarkable growth; Cingular has doubled the number of sent SMSs within a year (in millions):
Figure 2 might provide an explation for the striking growth: the SMS voting for “American Idol” which has been doubling itself from season to season caused the growth (in Millions)!
However, Cingular has done a lot more than offer SMS voting, it has been very creative with a diverse SMS offering:
1. Voting
All voting are done by texting the word ‘vote’ to a different number to vote for each contestant.
Who can vote?
Anyone calling or any Cingular Wireless subscribers that text message from within Continental US, Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico can cast their vote for the next American Idol.
According to Cingular’s press release, “it has set a new record for wireless text messaging in the fourth season of "American Idol". The company recorded more than 41.5 million text messages throughout the show's 12-week voting period, which is believed to represent the largest volume of text messaging in a single campaign in the history of the U.S. wireless industry.”
Season 3 had an 80% increase over season 2 with more that 40% of all participants had never sent a text message; and the most outstanding fact - from the first to the last voting episodes, text votes increased by nearly 700%! (According to “The Future of Mobile Media” by Lucy Hood, News Corp Content & Marketing, April 27, 2005). It would be only fair to say that “American Idol” taught the American nation how to SMS!!
2. Vote Reminder
Cingular offers its customers to sign up to a vote reminder. Customer then receives a recap of the contestants and their voting numbers just as the voting window opens. To sweeten the offering, customers who sigh to the vote reminder service can earn 25 bonus sweepstakes entries and get standard message rates apply to all messages sent and received.
3. Trivia Game
Cingular offers a trivia game about the idol’s facts. To play, customers need to register for the weekly 
game. Registered customers get 20 new questions each week direct from the show. Each question answered correctly gives 1 point, answer incorrectly and they get 0 points! The top 30 scores are available at Cingular’s web site. Signing up and playing is done by SMS, messages sent and received while playing American Idol Trivia are charged at your standard messaging rates.
Amazed? This is not all... wait for next Sunday to read about Cingular's offering beyond the SMS arena!
Interesting study, Xen. I don't like the SMS voting scene, mostly because I've been turned off by the millions of reports of Premium Messaging scams (i.e. Text Joke to 5555, etc.)
However, I'm fascinated to read more.
Posted by: Ricky Cadden | Thursday, April 12, 2007 at 03:55