Outdoor Life Network Tries Mobile Messaging

Taking advantage of U.S. interest in the Tour de France bike race, cable
channel Outdoor Life Network TV has
tapped irisme Mobile Media (iMM) to provide daily updates to subscribers’
wireless devices.

Viewers of the cable channel can go to OLN’s Web site and sign up to receive
opt-in messages and daily race updates via their cell phones, PDAs or
pagers, in the network’s first foray into mobile marketing.

Although short message service (SMS) marketing has taken off in Europe,
where it has been used by players like McDonald’s, Heineken, and Dunkin
Donuts, the medium is only just getting off the ground in the United States.
However, with the increase in consumer usage of SMS — fueled by carriers’
unveiling of interoperability and the proliferation of two-way messaging
capable phones — the medium may begin to take off with advertisers here.

“With its worldwide appeal, the Tour de France is the perfect event to start
with,” said E. Roger Williams, president and CEO of the Outdoor Life
Network.

Iris Wireless, the parent company of the
iMM unit which is delivering the text messages, specializes in offering a
carrier class telecommunications platform with global text and data
messaging capability. Its iMM unit is geared toward enabling advertisers to
deliver mobile marketing messages to consumers who opt-in.

The Greenwich, Conn.-based Iris said it is also working on next generation
technology for multi-media services when 3G handsets become available. The
irisme SMS service is interoperable with all text messaging platforms and
devices.

Get the Free Newsletter!

Subscribe to our newsletter.

Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis

News Around the Web