Correspondence: Claus Møldrup, Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy Section for Social Pharmacy Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences University of Copenhagen Universitetsparken 2 Copenhagen Ø DK-2100, Denmark. Tel: +45 35 30 64 52; Fax: +45 35 30 60 50; e-mail: cm@farma.ku.dk; Web: http://www.dfuni.dk/index.php/Moeldrup__Claus/755/0/

¹is a PhD (pharm) and an associate professor of social pharmacy, and Visiting Professor at INSEAD. His research is focused on lay and professionals' understanding and use of modern medicines, for example lifestyle drugs, pharmacogenetics, doping, medical marketing and future outlook on the concept of medicine.

Received 12 December 2006; Revised 12 December 2006.

Abstract

This paper describes a case study of an advertising campaign that has individual short message service (SMS) interaction concerning a health marketing message as the central element. Decisive factors include the widespread use of SMS, the opportunity for interaction and the independence from time and place. The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of engaging health consumers through SMS campaigns. Advertisements were run for four weeks from 1st January, 2006 to 1st February, 2006 with the message 'Test yourself to see what kind of a smoker you are and get help to stop smoking'. The test is a modified Fagerstrøm questionnaire. Over a four-week period, 10,565 people participated in the test. The case illustrates that it is most certainly possible to engage consumers and provide individual marketing via SMS mobile telephony.