4 What might account for the very positive response to SMS? Text messaging (the sending of brief written messages directly to a cellular telephone) has been a phenomenon of the twenty-first century – it is an entirely new means of communication, suitable for an entirely new millennium. It was only during 2001 that text messaging really took off. Cellular telephones became widely available to a young audience and, despite the belief in some quarters that text messaging would never catch on, the growth in the number of messages sent has been astronomical. During December 2001 alone, 1.3 billion chargeable text messages were sent across the four networks involved.

Marketers have never been slow to see the possibilities in a new communications medium, particularly one which has proved so popular with the younger end of the market. Marketers now send out text messages to potential customers via their mobile telephones; a way of reaching out directly to a potentially lucrative audience. A whole new acronym has appeared to encompass the new medium, and now SMS (short messaging service) is being used to promote movies, fast food, chocolate bars and even books.

Of course, if we were talking here about one-way advertising, public outcry would sink it without trace within weeks. It is reasonable to suppose that unsolicited text messages would prove as equally irritating as spamming on email. The lesson of spamming has not been lost on marketers, so the SMS system operates like any other direct marketing method, by being interactive with the recipients.

SMS professionals are at some pains to ensure that spamming does not occur. They are prepared to police the system themselves in order to weed out any rogues who might damage customer trust.

One useful factor which will help in this is that text messages are paid for by the sender, which makes indiscriminate texting an expensive operation.