In the recent ‘Get Some Nuts’ campaign for Snickers, featuring Mr T, some direct response mobile advertising was conducted. In one text message, they asked the target audience (16-24 male) ‘Who needs to get some nuts?’. In order to visually represent the keywords used in the responses they amplified the size of the lettering depending on how many people replied using a given word… who says young people aren’t political?
Whilst the above is slightly childish, there is a genuine and interesting advertising context to it. I had a presentation this morning from mobile network and media owner Blyk. They are a pay-as-you-go mobile network who give £15 free credit per month to their customers in exchange for personal profile information (likes, dislikes, activities, interests etc…) and consent for the receipt of 6 text messages from relevant advertisers per day. The profile information allows advertisers to target consumers by age, location, interest, occupation, propensity to respond to advertising and many other metrics.
Whilst text messaging on polling day has been used in the past, Blyk offers the opportunity of highly targeted, relatively creatively rich, interactive and relevant political advertising. At the moment Blyk is only available for the hard-to-reach demographic of 18-24 year olds; however, they and other mobile networks will soon be rolling out across a wider range of the population. This media platform seems like a no-brainer for political strategists at the next election.
