Fantasy Managers Tapped Up by The Times
4 February 2008
You've got £100 million to spend, and you need a striker. Do you want Torres, or Berbatov? Or maybe you would do better with Fulham's Andy Johnson, over the length of a season?
These are the dilemmas faced by players in The Times Fantasy Football game. It’s a key element of the newspaper's reader recruitment and loyalty programme, providing a high added-value service that engages sports fans in particular for the length of a football season.
Times Newspapers, part of the News International Group, selected the Redwood-driven STORM™ platform from Content Guru to provide a mobile player recruitment campaign. An SMS message was sent via the STORM RedAlert™ system to thousands of carefully selected prospects, who had played or registered interest in the game previously.
The message invited players to register for the new season and offered a discount on the price of entry. It included a click-through to the newspaper’s mobile Internet site, allowing players to enter for the new season direct from their mobile phones. Players claimed their entry discount using a code within the message, which could also be used for entry via the www.timesonline.co.uk website.
The Times Fantasy Football allows participants to build a team of top players from the English and Scottish Premierships, scoring points based on the performances of the real footballers during the season.
Players can make transfers and arrange loan signings in a bid to gain more points, always remaining within the £100 million budget they are given when they join the game.
"Mobile messaging of this kind is the ideal way to give a nudge to customers, and remind them to register for the new season," says Martin Taylor, Sales and Marketing Director for Content Guru. "In a world where we are bombarded with advertising messages wherever we go, timing the delivery of your message can be a crucial way to differentiate your proposition and stand out from the noise. The Times used STORM RedAlert to deliver a relevant message to people with a proven interest, at a time when they were most likely to act."
For further information call +[44] (0)1344 852 350 or text Guru to 66663.
