CONNECTIONS: Comment - Curse of unwanted SMS ads could kill off a useful medium

Let me give you an example of piss-poor mobile advertising.

A few months ago in Singapore I received an SMS from my mobile operator, which won't remain nameless, thanks very much M1. This was unasked for and offered me 10 per cent savings on calls to Madagascar. Now, I've never actually called Madagascar in my life. I probably never will, I don't know anyone who lives there.

The really stupid thing is my operator already knows which countries I call frequently. So what should have been an opportunity to do some highly effective, targeted advertising ended up as the phone equivalent of junk mail - but even more of a pain in the arse. This is the mobile equivalent of email spamming and it's becoming depressingly common in Asia. Unfortunately, it gets results, which some see as vindication for doing it.

But these are short-term gains - response rates will start to plummet as consumers get fed-up with unsolicited, unimaginative ads on their phone

What makes me so certain? Well, look what happened to banner ads. At one time, they were seen as a great advertising medium with click-through rates of 10 per cent or more.

But they were never used creatively. It was just a space to be filled up with as many pushy, badly-executed sales pitches as possible. So consumers started to ignore them. Which meant response rates started plummeting.

It's going to happen to SMS too, but I think it could go downhill even faster.

An unsolicited ad on something as personal as your mobile is far more unpleasant than a bad banner.

So what might be better? Clearly, any advertising has to be permission-based. Ask your audience to opt-in and make it easy for them to unsubscribe.

Second, we have to be more imaginative. We need to get the creatives involved so that they can explore new ways of using SMS. There's no better approach to discover compelling new ways to use the medium

Admittedly, at first glance, SMS doesn't seem at all promising. One font and a maximum of 160 characters. But with a bit of thought it can open up plenty of creative opportunities, as we found out when working on SMS campaigns as diverse as God (part of an integrated campaign for a group of Singapore churches) and Gorillaz, the virtual pop group.

They show that consumers actually enjoy receiving SMS advertising if you ask for their permission and follow tried-and-tested principles of doing good creative work, namely: be insightful, use humour and persuade rather than pummel.

The alternative is a flood of SMS spam, followed by the death of what could have been a great advertising medium.