I stumbled upon this campaign a couple weeks ago while checking out Yahoo!7’s relaunched mail service which I don’t often use (I’ll cover this off another time).
The copy in the Mail banner ad – “Costume hire? Call or SMS 1234″ – was a simple enough message which really did not need to have a mobile website dedicated to it. Well, except for the fact that it needed to cover off some legal speak and terms and conditions.
So – interested in what might lie beyond the banner – I clicked.
The mobile website contained more copy about 1234, explained the benefits and wide-scope that it provides information from. Then there were 3 links away from the page: click to call, free stuff and more info.
I didn’t click the ‘click to call’ link, but I tried the ‘free stuff’ and ‘more info’ links only to find out the links didn’t work. I’m not sure what might lie beyond the links: free wallpapers of the sockpuppet or more legal psycho-babble. Who knows, the links didn’t work. Fail.
1234 is a directory service of Telstra’s Sensis division, which charges users an expensive $2.39 per call plus standard call charges. While the service is no doubt a lucritive one for Sensis, it is battling against the channel shift of people using mobile search which is virtually free, aside from much lower data costs. The real benefit of 1234 is that it is often faster than mobile search – Sensis and its ad agencies should focus on demonstrating this, rather than creating complicated link-mazes.
