The Lunch Pail

Mobile Marketer called the SMS distribution of the Democratic VP announcement the "single largest mobile marketing event" to date. This is based on Nielsen Mobile numbers that estimate about 2.9 million subscribers received the text message announcing that Barack Obama had chosen Joe Biden as his running mate.

How did they get so many subscribers? That's the easy answer. People opted-in because they are brand loyal and care deeply about the announcement, wanting to be among the first to know. I said earlier that as a mobile marketer, you need make sure your target has an affinity with your brand or product if you want your text message campaign to be successful…or even get opt-ins.

Clearly these subscribers wanted to get the message because they feel involved in the Obama campaign in a personal way. Assuredly, there were John McCain supporters in there, too, following Sun Tzu’s advice to know your adversary. You can also count on some journalists who didn’t want to be scooped.

The idea of making the announcement this way reflects some of what Obama’s grass-roots campaign says they’re trying to do – create a movement from the ground up. Removing the news media from the equation made each text message subscriber as important in the eyes of the campaign as a major news media journalist…or so the idea goes. It’s a one-two punch of disintermediation made possible by technology and power to the people!

Unfortunately, the execution didn’t live up to the promise of this revolutionary campaign tactic; mainly because the announcement came at around 3:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Even on the west coast it was midnight. Many of those who signed up to get the text message still saw the news on CNN or CNN.com with their morning coffee, undisturbed by the text message while they slept. The promise of this tactic was both involving the masses AND removing the news media, but a middle-of-the-night send takes the wind out of the sails of this two-pronged approach. The immediacy of the text message was lost to slumber, and the text message fizzled.

The message here is clear. The medium is still the message. Text messages should be immediate. And execution counts.