|
Cleaning up mobile marketing
 Q: What have The X-Factor, Blue Peter and I'm a Celebrity. Get Me Out Of Here got in common?
A: Scandal!
Prime time TV shows are being hauled over the coals by the premium rate phone regulator, ICSTIS. Complaints were made against them for taking cash from text messages and phone calls where customers have no chance of winning, and in some cases of even entering, a competition. The timing could have been better for broadcasters. While text competitions have grown exponentially over the last year, ICSTIS also gained extra power in 2006 to bar services and impose fines of up to £250,000 a time.
There were even questions in the House. Tessa Jowell was so concerned that she waded into the debate at the House of Commons to grant even more power to the regulator in future, forcing broadcasters to display more prominent pricing information and on-screen updates of the number of entries received.
So where does that leave you?
Mobile marketing is far from dead, but like any marketing channel, know the rules before you start. Read up.
- Remember the basics. The Advertising Standards Authority's rules govern all marketing communications, and you can't go far wrong when you stick to them.
- All marketing communications should be legal, decent, honest and truthful.
- All marketing communications should be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society.
- All marketing communications should respect the principles of fair competition generally accepted in business.
- No marketing communication should bring advertising into disrepute.
Check all the details at http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/cap_code/
- There are 32 delicious pages of best practice at the Direct Marketing Association http://www.dma.org.uk/DocFrame/DocView.asp?id=1897&sec=-1
- Go to the horse's mouth - read the ICSTIS guidelines http://www.icstis.org.uk/default.asp
- Call an expert like Rapide - 02476 011911 - we've got a proven track record in mobile marketing in the UK and internationally. We can run client funded or 'pay to enter' campaigns for text, voice messages, phone calls, WAP and multimedia messages.
Click here to forward this article to a friend >>
Click here to return to the front page >>
| |
| |
