The Telecom $100,000 America's Cup text challenge developed by mobile enabling company Run The Red has generated nearly half a million text messages in just two weeks.

"The response to the competition has exceeded all expectations and been a huge success for Telecom after just two weeks - and the competition runs for the whole 152 days of the Louis Vuitton series and then the America’s Cup defence itself," said Ben Northrop.

"By way of comparison, a major text promotion for Coke earlier this year received 300,000 entries over a whole month – and that was heavily supported with TV advertising, point of sale promotions, product branding and the lure of $5million in prizes."

The Telecom $100k America’s Cup text challenge can only be accessed through a Telecom mobile phone and involves 'challengers' correctly answering a series of multi-choice questions for which they get an increasing number of points for each correct answer.

The more points challengers gain, the more chances they have to win prizes.
Prizes include baseball caps, Team New Zealand binoculars, Team NZ cameras, chilly bins, Magnums of Moet and Chandon, beach towels and free Telecom airtime.

Major prizes up for grabs include a $40,000 Toyota RAV4, five launch trips for two on the American Eagle to watch the America’s Cup racing (including airfares and accommodation for winners outside Auckland) and five Line 7 packages worth $500. Telecom customers on a monthly plan can also win one of five Sony Ericsson T60c Picture Messaging mobile phones.

Subscribers can go to a website, http://textchallenge.runthered.com to check out the prizes that have been won and the number of points they’ve earned. Subscribers can also check their points from their text-enabled mobile phones.

"Interactive text promotions are still very much in their infancy and both Telecom and ourselves have been learning a huge amount about what works and what doesn't," said Ben Northrop.
"From a straight marketing point of view for example, we have gained a real insight into the types of words that drive responses, people's attitudes towards receiving text messages on their mobile phones and the support needed to keep interest up and overall subscriber numbers growing."

"We are working on a number of new ideas. The sky is the limit for the application of text promotions to drive sales and improve marketing effectiveness.

"One of the keys is the strength and sophistication of the back-end systems and we have invested considerable time and resources to ensure ours is rock solid."
"We are confident that we have a product that will fit neatly into any company's marketing mix," said Mr Northrop.

Run The Red is a Wellington-based company and has recently established an office in Auckland. It specialises in mobile technology and has positioned itself primarily as a service partner to the mobile information market.