A TEXT message competition run by Australian Consolidated Press’ teen girls title Dolly attracted an incredible 6,879 entries and a further 3,707 votes on which of the finalists should win.
The magazine ran the competition to design a mobile phone cover through its Dolly2Uclub, which encourages reader interaction by offering SMS news and competitions, supported by a dedicated section in the magazine.
Stuart Tucker, marketing director at Optus Mobile, ACP’s partner in the venture, said the results were particularly impressive given that the competition entrants had to take the time to design a phone cover and send it in.
The 11 finalists’ compositions were shown in the June edition, with readers asked to vote on their fave.
The winner will be revealed in the August issue.
In the new results from the first ever continuous survey of under–14s, conducted by Roy Morgan Research, Dolly, Girlfriend and TVHits were the most popular titles among teens aged 10 to 17.
In polls conducted among the readers of Pacific Publications’Girlfriend and TVHits, more agreed that they “like to enter competitions via SMS” than agreed they “like to enter competitions run by magazines, newspapers and radio”.
This reverses among the younger readerships of Pac Pubs’K-Zone and Total Girl, which Roy Morgan found to be the first and third most popular titles respectively among kids aged six to 13.
Dolly’s Australian circulation is 158,597 according to ACP. Dolly2U launched last October and has about 5,000 members.
“[The club] gives us a chance to talk about new mobile technology and related matters,” said Tucker. “They’re a mobile-hungry audience.
“Text as a competition mechanism for this audience is very powerful.
“We were overwhelmed by the response and the quality of the designs submitted.”
