You cannot be serious," said Parth Parikh, CEO, Sculpt India Ltd, a leading marketer of running shoes and sundry fitness gear, as he took another look at the leaflets and poster material.

Akhilesh Mittal, Sculpt's marketing advisor, did not respond. Keen on the proposal he was in the process of presenting, the man was busy watching the boss' face. It was a face aglow, visibly intrigued by the creative work in front of him. Why interrupt his chain of thought?

'One Body Is All You Get!' screamed one leaflet on the creative presentation panel, 'Your Body Needs Your Help!' blared another, both followed by 'Take our fitness test, now' and a mobile phone number to SMS. This was the device to get 'opt-ins'.

"Go ahead," said Mittal, after some time, as Parikh reached for his mobile phone, "try it yourself... dial an instant test."

Parikh did, in his new role as customer-come-across-a-Sculpt-leaflet. It was an idea worth checking out, for sure.

"Good," said Mittal, with obvious relish, "contact established. That's the permission we need to start a fitness relationship between you and the brand Sculpt."

"Permission for what-to twist my back out of shape?" joked the chief, as he got off his chair and started following the rather aerobic instructions (to take the test) that had just been text-messaged back to him on his mobile screen.

"Ha ha ha... well, permission to engage you in some sort of exchange, game, rhythm, mental process or anything else," clarified Mittal, who was pleased to see the ease with which Parikh had participated-mentally and physically-in the back-and-forth SMS Q&A session designed to test his fitness on the spot.

"Hmmmm... any more of this and I should get Myron's Discus Thrower of the year award," quipped Parikh, nearing the end of the mini-workout he had just been subjected to.

"Good work. Now send in your age and other details. Depending on your score, Sculpt will send you a fitness regimen recommendation," said Mittal, as Parikh sat back in the relieving comfort of his swivel chair to read his mobile screen again.

"Great, I love this company-but my wallet has not got any lighter. When does Sculpt get to sell me anything?" asked Parikh, in genial concern for the company taking such an interest in his anatomical achievements.

"Patience," replied Mittal, "Patience. This is just the engagement phase. The preliminary interaction. And right now, we must concentrate on delivering two things to you-value and entertainment."

"Oh, wonderful," Parikh shot back, "For free?"

"No, not at all. Not in the long term, anyway," said Mittal, convinced that Parikh's interest had been piqued, for the simple reason that his mobile marketing proposal hadn't yet been flung out of the room.

Knowing Parikh, that was a good sign. The boss, trim and energetic at 48, was an extremely busy man. He was also an extremely receptive man. An early-adopter himself, he had developed his entire career on speeding up the adoption curve of new products and novel concepts.

"Technically," continued Mittal, "the technology allows us to deliver messages straight into your pocket."

"Interesting," said Parikh.

"But you can say 'no' whenever you want. That is critical. We simply cannot afford to be intrusive, or even come across as quick-wit deal-snapping sorts. The mobile phone is an intimate medium. It is live. It is part of you, wherever you are, most of your waking hours-and you trust the machine implicitly to aid your life. If it begins to irritate you, we're doomed. The very cause of mobile marketing is doomed."

"So this whole operation of leaflets and SMS tests will get us what-a mobile number database?"

"A database of opt-ins," nodded Mittal, "and then, once we've got the guy moving his bu... er, body, we SMS the best deals on appropriate footwear. We send an SMS price-off coupon. Would you like our classic sneakers for under 800 bucks?"

"This is the sort of marketing idea that probably works in markets with high mobile penetration," said Parikh, sounding a wee bit sceptical, "What are we talking about here-14 million handsets? Is that enough?"

"More than enough," said Mittal, "considering that mobile telephony is still an upmarket phenomenon in India-that is precisely our target audience. Yuppies on the move. That's whom we want, isn't it? The good news is that SMS costs so little. Just a rupee per message, or maybe even less if we bargain properly on large volumes. All we need is the backend software to sort the test responses, slot the alpha beta gamma whatever fitness plans correctly, and dispatch the recommendations."

"Sure. But we'll be operating blind, more or less. We have cost-per-conversion data on all our regular promotions, and with our budget so tightly squeezed, we barely have funds to implement even these. I can't afford wild shot experiments, you know. What are the metrics to go on? How do I justify this for the record?"

"I'm asking you to play it by your gut," said Mittal, echoing a word that he knew held appeal with his boss, "I'm asking you to think ahead of the curve. The response to mobile marketing campaigns overseas has been fantastic. Besides, this will work wonders for the brand, in terms of the meaning that Sculpt holds in people's heads, even if the actual sale-conversion ratio is not so hot."

"Sale conversion is all I have time for, right now," Parikh said, and then fell silent for a few seconds, before moving to qualify his words. "But that does not mean I'm not willing to work towards it. Meanwhile, do you have any mobile marketing success story to give me?"

"Plenty," said Mittal, breaking into a smile, "In Australia, The Coca-Cola Company used unique code numbers on its cans to solicit entries for an instant-win contest, and got some 4 million opt-ins, leaving its arch-rival zapped. McDonald's used fm radio to say 'Hey, SMS us for a Happy Meal voucher', and this succeeded in drawing the sort of crowds that could run onion-rings around its competitors. In the UK, Cadbury's distributed 65 million unique dial-back codes on its chocolate wrappers, and got 5 million opt-ins-that's an 8 per cent response."

"Interesting. Interesting. But what sort of creative baits did they use?"

"Regular interest ticklers, by and large, with strong value propositions thrown in. Some of these schemes even stirred up first-time SMS usage. India, being so cost conscious, is actually more SMS-happy than the richer mobile markets. No one disputes the fact that SMS is growing exponentially out here. This is a highly talkative culture."

"Talkative it most certainly is," admitted Parikh, "but does that spell mobile marketing success?"

"I'm willing to bet on it. China has got 10 times the phones, but when its parliament asks for SMS suggestions on something as real as SARS, it gets only 2,000 responses. In America, they send out this wacko 'save mankind' SMS to elicit interest in something as unreal as 'Planet Of the Apes', a Hollywood piece of sci-fi, and they get an avalanche of responses from wannabe-saviours. I think we'd fit in much closer to the US market on response rates."

The question: should Parth Parikh try out mobile marketing?

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