Text messaging is a popular way to market things in our society, and a Ball State University professor wants to know how students are reacting to it.
Michael Hanley, assistant professor of journalism and advertising sequence coordinator, said he and the Center for Media Design researched this for two years, and he has seen significant increase in acceptance of text messaged ads. Hanley said when he first started, 92 percent of students were annoyed with text ads. Now 29 percent are.
"It shows you kind of get used to the ads," he said. "There is more trust in the technology."
Hanley said students need incentives to accept these ads.
Hanley said there has also been an increase in text messaging ads since his research began in February of 2005. He said at that time, 25 percent of students surveyed said they got cell phone ads. Now 37 percent receive the ads.
Jackie Martinsen, testing project supervisor for insight and research at the CMD, said the second study was more focused on cell phone ad acceptance. She said 669 students were surveyed and researchers found adding incentives made students more willing to accept text messaged ads.
Wes Withers, Research Programming Manager, said students responded poorly to text ads when Hanley's research began due to weak incentives.
Withers said Papa John's offered a large pizza and breadsticks for $10, but students could call in the order instead of text messaging and get the deal.
"The goal is to find out how students will respond to an incentive like that," he said. "But the incentive wasn't that great; we learned something."
Withers also said the incentive advertisement was buried in the newspaper that day, so the incentives must be more visible.
Michael Holmes, assistant director of insight and research at the CMD, said this type of research is good for Ball State.
"In general, it is very important that good academic research is going on in this domain," he said. "It is good that a BSU researcher is making a mark in this area."
Hanley said he started researching text advertising because it was a unique.
"There are not a lot of professors in the U.S. doing cell phone research, especially over a two-year period," he said.
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