Joel Cheesman

Every year I think, “This is it. This is the year we see a Super Bowl ad touting a short code.” And so far I’ve been disappointed.

This year will (probably) be no different.

GoDaddy will apparently have a QR code in their ad (good luck capturing it from your sofa), and I think Doritos will be touting a mobile site or an app.

The opportunity to lever text message marketing and promote a keyword and short code is huge. Imagine a Papa John’s commercial instructing 90 million viewers to ‘text PAPA to (PLUGIN SHORTCODE HERE), for example, in order to get a coupon code or whatever, then opting that person in for ongoing deals, updates, etc.

This isn’t some fringe technology. This is practically 100 percent of the Super Bowl watching audience, smarthphones and feature phones alike.

I’m truly baffled that no major advertiser has embraced this opportunity. I’m hoping to be surprised this year, but most likely my fingers will be crossed for 2013.

I’ve been blogging, tweeting, Facebooking and YouTubing for a long time. And one of the things that always bugs me is how challenging it is to get content in front of the very people who wanted to see it.

Email open rates are abysmal, studies show less than 30 percent of tweets are actually read, and even RSS readers get so packed with content, it’s easy to get lost in the clutter.

That’s why I’m working on a new project called Textvana: http://bit.ly/textvana

If you blog, tweet or publish content of any kind, I think you owe it to yourself to check it out. Getting our launch alert is FREE: http://bit.ly/textvana

MLK Day is one of those WTH holidays. That is, some retailers are open while others are not. Or at least there’s enough uncertainty to just screw the whole thing and not even go out at all.

Discovering the holiday hours of your favorite dry cleaner, restaurant or salon is a pain in the butt. And by “pain in the butt” I mean, search online, find the right one, hopefully click-to-call and wait for someone to (hopefully) answer. Don’t even get me started on Yellow Pages.

SMS, in contrast, is a great way to alert your customers about holiday hours. Closed Christmas, but open till 5 o’clock on Christmas Eve? Let ‘em know with a text message. Open on MLK Day but closing earlier than normal? Do it in 160 characters.

The indirect benefit of this is that it turns into a promotional opportunity. If you’re a restaurant, let fans know you’re open at 10:30 a.m. so they find out right before lunch. Remember, 90 percent of texts are opened within 14 minutes of receipt.

Or use it to push specials honoring the holiday. I remember once grabbing carryout on Father’s Day only to see a piece of paper on the door mentioning a Father’s Day special. If I had only known about it beforehand.

It’s possible thanks to that little miracle in your pocket.