Raising awareness for a new text-messaging phone

by Eni Farhani Binti Abu Malek 2009136697
Text is surpassing talk, that is the new generation’s mobile phone culture which not only happened in US but also it happened around the world. LG aware this new communication revolution which made this Korea based company would like to reinforce a campaign that fully focused on text messaging to their target audience to promote enV, the new text messaging phones. Because of that, in 2007 LG has initiated the LG National Texting Championship, the first national US text-messaging competition. This competition launched in Los Angeles and the final stage happened in New York.



To promote the competition, LG use an aggressive publicity which include strategic media exclusives, pre-event teasers, and publicize it through trade, entertainment, business, and consumer lifestyles press. Instead of traditional media strategies, LG also applied new media that is online and offline calendar listings, recognizing popular blogs, email to colleges, and post at social networking sites for instance FaceBook and MySpace.

The results of such aggressive publicity is remarkable, thousands of people participate to win the National Texting Champion title. It was a successful competition and LG successfully made the competition as trendsetters and technology influencers. Most importantly, its target youth consumer aware the competition and create a buzz among media especially mobile phone media. Good Morning America, TODAY Show, The Early Show, FOX News, Last Call with Carson Daly, Reuters, Associated Press, NPR, ESPN Cold Pizza, New York Post, New York Daily News, TIME, Yahoo!, In Touch Weekly, MSNBC, and the Los Angeles Times are among the top media placement that cover the competition and the main objective to promote the enV mobile phones is successful because LG has become one of the Verizon’s highest selling mobile phones.

LG National Texting Championship still continues and in fact the competition has reached its fourth annual and become the most important text events in United States. This renowned text-messaging competition has reach into another level where international level LG has introduce LG Mobile World Cup. In 2011, LG Mobile World Cup took place on Jan. 26 in New York City at the historic Gotham Hall where 16 countries including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Korea, Morocco, Nicaragua, Panama, Portugal, South Africa, Thailand and U.S has participate it. Cristina Sales Ancines, age 20, and Jennifer Sales Ancines, age 15, from Panama as the “World’s Fastest Texters and they won $100,000 USD. So, who says texting is such a wasteful skill?

References: OgilvyPR (2012). How do you cut through the clutter of cell phone publicity and raise awareness for a new text-messaging phone? Retrieved April 20, 2012, from http://www.ogilvypr.com/en/case-study/lg-electronics-mobilecomm-usa-inc