The use of mobile phone technology in arts marketing is not a new concept, claim Gareth Pugh and Adrian Phillips. However, as with Internet ticketing a few years ago, it seems that many organisations are still reluctant to see it as a viable part of their kitbag. To our knowledge, large-scale projects such as txtm8, (which South West Arts Marketing ran in 2002) are few and far between and SMS or ?texting? continues to be viewed as something just to attract the youth market.
However, two major technological advances have widened the potential of SMS and may well encourage more arts marketers to see it as a communication method to embrace, rather than simply toy with. The first is WAP (Wireless Application Protocol); you can send a message known as a ?WAP Push message? to most phones. When the recipient clicks on the message, it opens up a small web page on the phone and, unlike traditional texts where you are restricted to 160 characters, the recipient can then find more information through the mobile web page and can also make a reservation independently via the box office.
Since you sent the message in the first place, you will not have to collect their details again as the web page is unique to them, which gives a very quick user experience. One note of caution; although many mobile browsers are able to make SSL (Secure Socket Layer protocol) connections to the Internet it would be unlikely that many people would use their credit cards to buy tickets through their mobile phone browser ? just because it?s possible, it does not mean the customer will use it!
The second advance, Java, is a technology most often associated with games on mobile phones. These applications are becoming increasingly powerful and there are many very useful applications now available. This, potentially, is the most exciting technology for the arts. Customers can install an application on to their phone in less than a minute. They can then have an entire season?s events guide available on their phone. Once they have found an event that they wish to attend, they can book it at the click of a button. To update their events guide, the user just has to click on the ?Update? button and the application will check if any new events have been added. All it takes for a venue to publish an event is an Excel spreadsheet: it?s as simple as that.
So far there have been too few applications of mobile phone technology within the arts to demonstrate one way or the other whether customers will embrace it and make use of it. But we believe that the positive implications in terms of accessibility and cost are too exciting to ignore for much longer.
Why not try it out? We have set up a demo system for you to try out. In order for this demo to work, you need a WAP enabled mobile phone. It will also cost about 10p to access.
Step 1 ? Send the text message Arts to 82280
Step 2 ? You will receive a message
Step 3 ? Click on the message
Step 4 ? You should now see a web page on your phone
Step 5 ? Scroll through the menu to select events, dates, etc?
Gareth Pugh is a Director of Mobile Productivity and Adrian Phillips is Director of High Wide & Handsome Training and Marketing Services for the arts.
t: 01865 883139;
e: info@hwandh.co.uk