On Textually, Emily has an interesting post on "missed call marketing", presumably a new form of mobile marketing spam.

"Missed call' marketing is the term that has been given to the practice of calling a mobile telephone for such a short period of time that the owner cannot answer the call. When the marketer disconnects the call, most mobile phones present a 'missed call' notification with the marketer's number. The marketer intends that the owner of the phone will think that they have missed a legitimate call and ring the number back, in which case they hear a recorded promotional message".

Spam is always very annoying especially if now it expands from your mailbox to your mobile phone. However, looking at the "Missed call marketing" practice, I'm impressed by the spammers' creativity in coming up with such a great idea which taps into the strongly emotional relationship people have with their mobile phone. How many people get excited/worried/surprised/curious by a missed call from an unknown number? I love these new spammers who studied the sociology of the mobile phone :-)

It's also a good way to reduce costs: I imagine that all the inbound calls are charged to the targeted phone owner.

A particular attention would be due if the number you're calling is a pay-per-call number: a way to get revenues from phone spamming without spending a buck ;-)

Finally, is the best way to destroy your brand awareness in seconds :-)

Posted by: Neuville at September 28, 2006 12:02 PM

try living in Japan for a week and see what a great idea you think this is then...

There is nothing that pisses the general public off more than this form of spam.

In Hong Kong they don:t wait for the ring back, you just get an call, you answer it, its a taped message from a random sponsor, usually a drug company. Wonderfully, you have to listen to a three minute rant (in Chinese) before you get the option to permanently opt out of such calls. Bad luck if you don:t speak Chinese though, you'll never know how to exercise that option.

Posted by: Marcus at October 1, 2006 12:48 AM