FT recruits readers via mobile campaign

by Hayley Pinkerfield, Revolution UK 20-Jun-07, 10:00

LONDON - The Financial Times has launched a nationwide mobile marketing push to coincide with a multi-million pound ad campaign.

The campaign involves an in-store poster promotion running in more than 1,250 retail stores across the UK. Prospective FT readers are invited to text a keyword to a shortcode. In return, they receive a text voucher entitling them to a 50p discount off the FT every day for four weeks. Vouchers can be used at any participating retailer across the UK. In addition, each participant receives a second text voucher entitling them to a free 4-week trial of FT.com's online service.

Martin Ashford, UK circulation director at the FT, commented: "This is a visually arresting campaign designed to attract the attention of potential readers who may not have considered the FT before. We wanted an equally contemporary promotion to run alongside this new campaign and i-movo gives us just that. We proved last year that this is a very effective way to engage consumers and the real-time nature of i-movo allows us to track the success of the promotion on a minute-by-minute basis, right down to store-level."

The SMS voucher campaign technology is being provided by i-movo, a private company jointly part-owned by the directors of agency Conchango.

This latest marketing push follows the FT teaming up with first direct to deliver a series of investment podcasts. This marked the national paper’s first partnership with a third party on such a project.