More and more tee­nagers in India spend hours after hours tapping out messages to friends on their cellphones but these days they're as likely to be pitched on joining politics as they are to be asked out to the movies.

Tech-savvy youth's 24/7 use of cellphones has spurred the marketing use of SMS, or short messaging service, which lets mobile phone users transmit text messages quickly and cheaply. Cellphone subscribers will send about 50 trillion text messages globally during 2012, up from 250 billion in 2002, according to industry sources. Person-to-person "texting" still accounts for most traffic, particularly among youth, but marketing applications are becoming more common.

SMS is proving to be an excellent means of communicating brand values. This is because it is such a personal and direct medium. And, the strength of an individual's relationship with his or her mobile phone is unique. Nevertheless, SMS marketing is not without its serious problems.

A big obstacle in creating a successful SMS campaign usually is the telecom carriers. Unless carriers are willing to opt in to a promotion, it won't work, because they are hesitant to give away phone numbers.

And with stringent restrictions on marketing companies on the issue of privacy of individuals, it will be increasingly difficult to do a successful campaign in the days to come. Unfortunately, carriers are not adept at putting together marketing plans.

They haven't done their homework profiling individuals, so promotions often come off as spam. This has caused a lot of backlash, particularly in the Philippines and Singapore. India is not far behind in this.

Even telecom companies haven't figured out how to use it yet since it appears they are treating SMS as mass medium rather than a personalised medium.

Costs vary depending on whether marketers send messages to consumers, or vice versa or both. The cost to the client is less than 50 paise today per customer, depending on numerous variables, such as whether an agency was involved for strategy and creative; carrier and third-party data costs; and the overall complexity of the campaign. So far, the two most successful forms of SMS marketing involve digital coupons and time or event-based messages, which usually involve other forms of media and an intuitive process on the part of consumers, who opt-in voluntarily.

Coke started off a successful SMS campaign way back in 2001 when they partnered with Siemens to create an SMS contest in China. Cellphone users were invited to guess the next day's temperature in Beijing; a correct guess could win a Siemens phone or a one-year’s supply of Coke. Contestants who didn't win were invited to download Coke's jingle as a free ring tone. The result: 4 million messages were exchanged during the 40-day promotion; nearly 50,000 people downloaded the Coke jingle.

Several ad agencies have set up interactive divisions to handle SMS campaigns. This is especially true for India where SMS is particularly hot. Moreover, in India there are more mobile phones than there are toothbrushes. Many people in the rural areas do not use toothbrushes but most of them have a mobile phone and in urban areas, people carry two or more mobiles! Essentially, mobile phone penetration is outstripping fixed-line phones and PCs.

Asia is, in many ways, the great mobile part of the world, according to experts. It's a trendsetter in terms of importance and influence, and the interest of advertisers in SMS is very high right now. In Singapore, Asia Pacific Breweries did an SMS teaser campaign to promote Anchor Beer's new packaging and flavour. The agency invited potential customers through SMS to "have a beer on us." About 24 per cent of recipients accepted the offer and were sent a secret serial number redeemable for a free beer at selected nightspots.

To boost SMS usage in Taiwan, one of the leading ad agencies developed a campaign titled "King for a Week" for Chunghwa Telecom's Emome brand. Each week, the person who sends the most SMS messages is treated like a king, his wishes fulfilled, filmed and aired on cable TV. The contest boosted the number of SMS messages sent by 10 per cent, to more than 1 million a day.

Buzz was created in Singapore when people flipped open their phones to find friendly messages from God. Working for the evangelical Churches of the Love Singapore Movement, Ogilvy transmitted witticisms purportedly from God via SMS. On Friday afternoons, many Singaporeans received a message saying, "Thank me it's Friday. God."

Why are Indian marketers shunning such radically different marketing ideas?

The writer is CEO and MD of CustomerLab Solutions