It is regarded as the standard language of today's youth.
But text messaging is not only emerging as a quick and simple channel for communication among the young, it is becoming a valuable tool for advertisers to get their messages effectively across to their target audience in some parts of the world, like the United States.

Industry analysts predict cell- phone advertising to hit $3 billion in the next five years. The US-based Mobile Marketing Association, in the meanwhile, says 89 per cent of all American companies will use text and multimedia messaging to reach their customers by 2008, with a third of these companies expected to spend more than 10 per cent of their marketing budgets on advertising via this medium.

While many argue that this mode of communication is not new, some agree that the industry is indeed heating up and promising to compete with the traditional forms of advertising.
But are local advertisers ready to go that route?
For one communications consultancy firm, cell-phone advertising is already big business here.

"Cell-phone advertising is a big business in Jamaica," Stephen Spence, chief executive officer Ucantel - a local firm that delivers messages for companies, schools and individuals via text messaging - told Thursday Life.

"When you want results, mobile phone is the best way. We have discovered that more than 80 per cent of people who receive text messages actually read them and that is what we want. Whether or not they respond is their choice," he said.

Churches Cooperative Credit Union is one such company that has taken advantage of this low-cost method of advertising.

"[It] has proved very, very effective for us when we have information to send to our customers from time to time," said the company's public relations officer, Tracey-Ann Daley.
Some local advertising firms are giving the idea serious consideration.

"We are certainly looking in that direction... as long as technology reaches that level," said Adrian Robinson, managing director of the advertising and marketing company, Marketing Counsellors. "It is a very, very interesting prospect for Jamaica."

Robinson, however, pointed out that going this route would depend on "a few things" such as technology, the cost to advertise and how the Jamaican consumer responds.
"Jamaicans are very unique, they don't take things the way the rest of the world does," he emphasised.

Marketing Plus Communications' director Kingsley Morris believes that cell-phone advertising could develop into a big industry.

Kirk Waldemar, on the other hand, a director at the advertising and marketing company WaterWorks, says some of his clients have already gone that route.
"If we think it makes sense, then we recommend it to [them]," he said.

He however, said this form of advertising is more than just sending texts wildly.

"It has to be done very carefully. If the phone companies accept too much of this, it can be annoying to customers. It has to be very, very carefully targeted," he told Thursday Life, adding that to avoid Spam, the right product has to be sent to the right persons, or it could become a big turn-off.
But how do the local carrriers factor in this new wireless phenomenon?

Errol Miller, Cable and Wireless' president of communications and corporate affairs, said companies are connected to their SMS platform only after entering in a contract with the mobile company which allows them to initiate SMS blasts, that is, sending a number of messages simultaneously. He said such an arrangement does not constitute a breach of privacy, but companies are bound to advertise only "to their own customers who have agreed to such advertising".

"There are penalties stipulated for breaches," he told Thursday Life.

Miller said that while it might be possible for an individual to advertise on cellular phones he was not aware of an easy method of doing a text blast without a direct connection to the SMS platform of a service provider. The closest would be to use e-mail but the anti-Spam settings on the e-mail server would likely thwart such efforts.

"Of course anyone is free to send a text message to anyone else and so one could simply send their ads as a regular text to anyone they feel like," he said.

Harry Smith, commercial director at Digicel, explained that Digicel does not allow cell-phone advertising, unless organisations make arrangements with their customers that they will accept this type of advertising.

"If not, this would facilitate Spam," he said in reference to advertising material sent by e-mail to people who have not asked for it.

"We don't want to create a bad relationship between our clients and ourselves, but if customers opt in we will accept it," he told Thursday Life.

Smith admitted that as long as there is a signed document by customers, Digicel would allow this form of advertising. Even then, the message would have to be approved by the phone company.

But he said this form of advertising is not currently part of Digicel's plans.

"This is not likely to be a route we will take anytime soon," Smith admitted. "We advertise our own products, but we have never done it for a third party."

MiPhone shared similar views. "Technically, it is possible to advertise via cell phone, but the rules of engagement are of such that we would have to prevent Spam," Noel Esty, product development specialist at MiPhone said. "We would have to get a signed agreement by each person accepting this message."

Esty said, "Phone companies which allow cell-phone advertising run the risk of driving away their customers and no phone company wants to take that risk."

"The most we [MiPhone] are willing to do in the near future is 'location base advertising'," he pointed out. Explaining that if you are at a specific location while a promotion is taking place, a text message would be sent to you with information on how to participate and win.

"It is really not a good idea to send messages to people that they did not ask for," Esty concluded.

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