A recent mobile advertising/marketing campaign to get UK pub-goers to try Strongbow appears not to have worked very well, according to The Inquirer.
The promo centred around a text message that was received, urging people to text back to get a free “pint” (568ml glass). Apparently, there was also an additional use of LBS (location-based services), whereby if “pub” was texted back to the source shortcode, then the address of nearby ale-houses would be sent back – cool methinks, but read on….
It turns out though that there were on a number of restrictions on when you could claim your pint – both in terms of days and time. The Inquirer‘s …er… enquiries suggest that in the pub they checked, nobody had taken part. This could be, it is suggested, because users perceived that the text they sent would be charged at premium rate – thus removing the “free” part of the pint equation!
Interestingly, I got this exact text during the promo period, and discounted it based on the fact that they had tried to squeeze all the info in to one text message – something that frustrates me a little when there are obviously going to be wordy T’s & C’s behind the promo. Also, I can’t help but think that given Strongbow’s very visual TV advertising (each Ad ends with two arrows hitting some form of stationary target), that at least image-based MMS, or even video-based MMS, might have been a really nice move.
Hey ho, on to the next promo, and lets hope it whets the taste buds as much as this one could have!
[Via: The Inquirer]