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‘Glamour,’ Others Offering Ads with Text-to-Buy Capabilities

A number of consumer magazines, including Details, CosmoGirl, Glamour and Brides, are including ads with short codes readers can use for text-to-buy transactions.

The ads use a new technology from ShopText and eBay unit PayPal, and allow consumers the option of sampling and purchasing some products via their cell phones, writes Brandweek.

Text-to-buy technology is in its early stages, but, according to Mark Kaplan, founder/CMO of ShopText, it will explode in 2007. Others, however, are not so optimistic. Dan Schatt, senior analyst with Boston-based research firm Celent, points out that some of the consumers targeted by the campaign may have trouble on the payment front. Teens, for example, are likely to not own a credit card, though they may have a prepaid card, he says.

Kristine Welker, vp/publisher of CosmoGirl, is excited about the opportunities. She points to the Elizabeth Arden 2005 campaign for the Britney Spears perfume, Curious, which included mobile text messages from Spears. That was the inspiration for Arden’s Hilary Duff campaign, she says, adding that the Britney Spears campaign was great, “but it stopped short of the ability to buy on the phone.”

Publishers are not the only ones implementing text-to-buy campaigns. National CineMedia used ShopText on a promo for DVDs of Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and club-owner The Knitting Factory intends to offer text-to-buy concert tickets for sale in 2007.
Other companies offering the ability to make purchases through mobile phones include PayPal Mobile, a new service which lets users buy CDs and DVDs from MTV and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.