Nielsen: 'Obama text' reached 2.9 million
Let's say Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sent every one of those "here's my V.P." text messages from his own cell phone. And let's say his mean, nasty carrier charged him 10 cents for each one. According to Nielsen's numbers, his bill would've been $290,000--that's because the statistics firm says that the SMS campaign stunt reached 2.9 million people.
The company's Nielsen Mobile division did the math, monitoring approximately 40,000 SMS short-code lines in the U.S. and coming up with the final tally of 2.9 million.
"The VP message was sent in the late hours of Friday night and is, by many accounts, the single largest mobile marketing event in the U.S. to date," a release from Nielsen read. The initiative has been moderately criticized because it ultimately didn't work: the press reported that Obama had chosen Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential pick before anyone had had the chance to hit the "send" button on that fateful text message.
But Nielsen says that doesn't matter.
"While much has been said of the timing and the scoop by news outlets, Obama's V.P. text-message still ranks as one of the most important text messages even sent and one of the most successful brand engagements using mobile media," Nielsen's report read, adding that an estimated 116 million American use text messaging actively.
"The value of the message goes far beyond the 26 words and 2.9 million recipients. Here, Obama branded himself as cutting edge, inflated the already enormous press attention paid to his V.P. pick and further established a list of supporters' most coveted form of contact: their cell phone numbers."
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
The analogies used are wrong. Using words like "marketing event" and "brand engagement" do not apply to what just occurred.
If anything, it was more like a birth announcement or some other snippet of good news.
Nothing was advertised. No one bought anything. No one was converted.
Each of those message recipients were going to vote for Obama no matter who he picked.
Go ahead and be the first to send that group of people an advertisement for a dollar off something and prepare to be vilified in public.
If people know you're going to advertise to them, they won't sign up. Would you?
Why is it that every communication channel must be polluted by advertising?
Because most people want everything to be "free" or "cheap." Would you pay $10/month to read CNET? $0.50/text? $20/month for Facebook? Do you think most people would? Since the answer is "no," advertising is what pays the bills.
And this is different than spamming how? At least they picked the correct adjective: inflated. No increase in substance here, just more hot air.
- by rizzn August 28, 2008 1:48 PM PDT
- @bplewis24: how is DigitalFrog's comment ignorant? You're saying you prefer the medium to the message? You're ok listening to anything, be it nazi hatespeech to britney spears lyrics, so long as it's on a text message or some other format you prefer?
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