I woke up yesterday morning to a TV promo spot for the circus coming to my town. The spot said something about using my mobile phone and texting to a number and typing in the word CIRCUS. This was 5:30 AM in the morning so I could not get the whole spot focused in my brain.
When I got to work I decided to research the promotion. First I googled with no luck. Then I went to the circus’s website with no luck. Then I tried the TV station’s website. There on the home page was the circus. I clicked on it and up came the promotion. It stated that if I text to #88709 and type in the word “circus” I could win tickets. So I picked up my blackberry and gave it a try.
The rest of the day I waited for some reply but nothing happened. When I got home I decided I would try it again. I went to the website again and looked to see if I had typed in the right number. I did type the right number but nothing had happened. I tried it again except I left off the “#” in front of the number. Within 30 seconds I received a reply text. It was from the TV station. It thanked me for entering the contest and that I could win a family 4-pack to the circus.
While the return text did say the name of the show and where it was playing, it did not say when it was playing. Also, I would think the show would want to promote how to buy tickets for the thousands of customers who will not win tickets.
Now that I had sent the text via my mobile phone and received the return text, now what? Is that it? I assume that both the TV station and the show have captured my mobile phone info. What are they going to do with it? Will I receive any more texts from them?
I wonder how many promo spots for this promotion are running and at what times? Do you think that potential customers went through the same effort that I did?
Tags: Circus, mobile marketing, text message, TV promo spot
