Harper Collins Breaks Into SMS With Sugar

Harper Collins has become the first UK publisher to launch an SMS advertising campaign after signing a deal with Attic Futura’s teen magazine Sugar to promote a series of new books to teenage girls.

Harper Collins has signed a deal with teen title Sugar allowing it to utilise the magazine’s database of 7-16 year old girls and plans to drive sales by taking advantage of the popularity of text messaging among the age group.

Senior publicity manager of Collins Children’s Books, Jo Williamson, said: “Tweenage girls are prolific text messagers, so this campaign is a natural fit. It introduces them to the books via the medium with which they are comfortable and which is very much part of their everyday lives. We believe the activity will lead to a far greater use of text messaging for future book promotions targeting this age group.”

According to NOP research, 7-16 year olds currently send around 12 million text messages a day. Speaking at last month’s SMS 2002 mobile marketing conference, Anne de Kerckhova, MD of 12Snap, said: “This age group sees text messaging as their primary form of communication. They love SMS and are eager to interact with brands by responding to mobile marketing campaigns.”

Mobile youth marketing agency Aerodeon has been retained by the publisher to manage the campaign, which will advertise the launch of two new series of books from the US teen brand Mary-Kate and Ashley. This is America’s biggest teen brand and a television series based on the books currently broadcasts in 57 countries around the world.

Recent SMS stories from NewsLine: 12Snap Creates Media Sales Division January Text Message Total Reaches Record High SMS Campaign Boosts Profits For Cadbury

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