Being in the text messaging business, text elements in advertising always have a habit of jumping out at me. Last weekend i attended a festival in Belgium (rockwerchter.be) and noticed that the wristband I was given for the campsite contained a call to action. The idea was simple, people could text WERCHTER NL or WERCHTER FR for a mobile festival guide.

This is a perfect example of how to use text messaging effectively. I'm not sure of the response rates, but I certainly saw lots of the 80,000 attendees using their mobiles to check timetables and festival maps.

Many businesses and organisations miss the point of mobile. It doesn't HAVE to be used for direct marketing, and you don't HAVE to be selling something or getting a direct ROI. But if you provide a free, useful service, your customers are more likely to remember you as good and use you again. In this case, attendees to the festival will come away with a positive feeling about the organisation of the event. Because instead of forcing them to buy expensive festival guides, or wander aimlessly looking for a particular band, they could have all the information they needed at their fingertips, for free.

So in this instance mobile was being utilised to provide a useful service, which in turn helped create a positive overall impression of the event. Oh, and obviously the good weather, great beer and awesome music helped too!