Can these ads really tempt Americans to SMS?

Text messaging isn't all too popular in the states we hear, while mini-keyboard beepers have carried text messages for a long time, people use their cell phones - or "wireless phones" if you prefer, though Europeans call them mobiles - to actually make (*gasp!*) voice calls with. So what is a company that serves prepaid cell phone packages with unlimited SMS services - I'm sorry "text messages" - to do in order to get attention? Prepaid mobile phone and cheap phone cards have been around for ages in Europe, and Europeans SMS more often than they make voice calls (though these days all the cool kids MMS, multimedia message service), perhaps that is what i-wireless took to heart when they decided to run a campaign that looks like an Americans idea of a European campaign.

The idea here is to illustrate SMSes - as you can see one is bait, and the other is jewelry. Swallows and Trophy. Double dip and You wish. You should be able to read these on your own by now, but here goes - last one is Excuse. Gee Jeffery & Partners who created the ads are trying to talk to the teens - we guess - with these "text messaging" ideas. Now, male teens are probably very preoccupied with boobies, or so I've heard.. But the obvious male targeting of the campaign isn't really what bothers me. What bothers me is this: hu d feck spLz out d full wrds wen dey snd sms? Wht a gr8 way of missing d lingo. They might be speaking the (male) targets visual language but the text headlines fall short. Since when was bling back to being jewelry by the way? I know it's old and overused but I must have missed a memo. Another part of the campaign is the commercial (QT) on their site, it depicts a snowboarder during off season.

 

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