Mobile marketing campaign for Pro Evolution Soccer 2009

Goal

The 2-day Game tournament would have hundreds of seats available for the same amount of players. Users could participate by booking a seat through SMS command, and where able to cancel their participation with an automatic choice of a runner-up.

Procedure

Users were able to participate by sending by SMS a coupon number found on the Game box they purchase and a full name. In order to use the service users should register for the tournament but if they were minors they ought to have clearance from parents. So registrations where based on coupons and not phone numbers since parents could book player seats, for more than one minor. This mobile marketing campaign had three fully automated periods for booking, confirming, and receiving update for their participation.

The tournament that lasted two days was going to have a minimum set of players each hour, for 12 hours per day. Due to priority order, users could take a seat to tournament and according to their rank they were placed from the system to an available participation time slot. When all seats were taken, users where place in a runner-up list with the priority of the date and time they text to register.

All players of the tournament were informed few weeks before in order to confirm their participation in a specific time range. For each user who didn’t confirm in the appropriate time frame, he was disqualified, and a runner-up was selected for that seat. The runner-up was informed from the system, and a confirmation message should be given for a smaller time-frame.

One of the challenges of this automatic procedure was that users were able to use their phone to book more than one seats and they should confirm each of their booked participation with the same phone. This was solved due to queued session activations for the same user. During this campaign users were able by SMS commands to unregister, get reminder of their playing time, and ask for more information.

In the final state of this campaign, all active participants of the tournament were informed periodically for the status of the tournament, and they were alerted on when to arrive and what to do. Tournament hosts, were provided with all necessary lists, and other tools accessed via web for their convenience for handling so many participants.

Time of completion

Using the existing infrastructure the implementation of the SMS mobile application was less than 5 work days.

Duration of Service

The service was launched October of 2007 and completed on February of 2008. During this time, our supporting operations were minimal, and had to do mostly with consulting.

How it works

• Step 1: Registration Request
  Users to participate send a simple SMS with a coupon number provided in the game they bought.
  [TO: 4100 Z8DF34DG]
• Step 2: Coupon validation
  Users could use only once each coupon. For each case of invalid coupons, a set of messages was replied accordingly.
  [FROM: 4100 Dear friend, your coupon is valid. If you want to register for the tournament you should text back you full name.]
• Step 3: Name registration
  Users to participate send a simple SMS with their Full name
  [TO: 4100 John Papadopoulos]
• Step 4: Subscription Response
  Users were informed instantly if they would participate in the event or they would be in a runner-up list.
  [FROM: 4100 Dear John Papadopoulos, you are in the tournament, you will be notified to confirm your participation at 10/01/2008]
• Step 5: Confirmation Alert
  Users had to confirm their participation within 2 days from the alert. Otherwise they were disqualified and a runner-up was selected.
  [FROM: 4100 Dear George, we are please to inform you that due to a cancellation you are now in the tournament! You are competing at 03/02 11:00 approve by texting OK]
• Step 6: Approval Request
  Our system uses smart algorithms for the activating session for the users, and without mixing up applications in the shared short code.
  [TO: 4100 OK I WILL COME]
• Step 7: Confirmation Response
  By sending OK, user’s participation was locked and user was included in the information list of next steps and reminder SMS.
  [FROM: 4100 Dear George, your participation is confirmed on 03/02 11:00. You should register with your game coupon at 10:30 in the registration corner. Good Luck!]
• Step 8: Last notice Alert
  Confirmed users were reminded when to come to the tournament, and the status of it.
  [FROM: 4100 Dear George, we remind you that you are competing on 03/02 11:00. You should register holding your coupon at 10:30 in the registration corner. Good Luck!]