AT&T’s ‘America Idol’ blunder a setback to mobile marketing industry: Boneheaded promotion infuriates some subscribers

Consumer-advocacy groups last week took on a host of players in the mobile marketing space, demanding the Federal Trade Commission look into the still-nascent space. Then, as if on cue, AT&T Mobility threw gasoline on the fire.
In case you missed it, the nation’s No. 2 operator managed to perturb more than a few of its customers last week when it sent text messages to some of its subscribers plugging “American Idol,” a show with which the carrier has long had ties. The pitch was delivered to users who had participated in AI voting in the past and other text-happy subscribers, AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel told the New York Times, which first reported the story.
But customers – some of whom claim never to have watched the show or send many texts – were quick to vent their anger through Twitter and on Internet message boards. “I don’t consider myself a heavy texter, and I sure as heck haven’t voted via text for this horrible show, yet I still got the stupid spam message,” one user wrote on Consumerist.com.
Siegel defended the campaign, claiming “It makes perfect sense to use texting to tell people about a show built on texting.”
No, Mark, it doesn’t. Not when you’re sending the come-on to people who don’t want it. And not when some of those people – the heavy texters who don’t watch the show – might be your best customers.
It’s not that the campaign was particularly egregious; I’m not sure there’s a subscriber in America who hasn’t received an unwanted text from his or her carrier. It was just poorly targeted, it appears, and too broad. AT&T overreached.
The backlash made for a fierce first week on the job for Mike Wehrs, who took the reins at the Mobile Marketing Association from Laura Marriott. The MMA immediately asked AT&T about the promotion, Wehrs said, in an effort to determine whether it violated the association’s guidelines for wireless ads – and what to do about it if it did.
Those discussions underscore why government intervention is unnecessary in mobile marketing, Wehrs insisted. The industry has done a good job of establishing ground rules and is perfectly capable of policing itself.
That’s probably true. As powerful as AT&T is, it certainly doesn’t want to ruffle the feathers of the MMA, which has generally done a solid job of making sure its members avoid marketing missteps and the bad PR that follows.
But the efficacy of the MMA won’t matter if boneheaded moves like AT&T’s continue to draw attention and outrage consumers. The users who voiced their outrage at the “American Idol” campaign don’t know about the MMA, they don’t care about the backroom discussions and they’ll demand governmental intervention to keep mobile marketers in check.
The MMA and other organizations have impressively laid the foundation for a thriving, lucrative mobile marketing industry, but much of that work will be for naught if the industry can’t prove it can keep its act clean. And the only way for that to happen is to avoid infuriating consumers in the first place.