Teletext goes mobile
Live updates, news apps with push notifications, online TV. Up-to-the-minute information—faster, more dynamic, and more mobile than ever—has long been a reality we live and experience every day. Can an «info dinosaur» like Teletext still keep up? By Beat U. Schneider, Head of Marketing & Sales at SWISS TXT Schweizerische Teletext AG.
The 2012 European Championships, Roger Federer at the French Open or the vote on the second home initiative have shown that political results, sports results and other daily news are still accessed regularly, in large numbers and above all via Teletext. The TV information channel has over one million visitors a day. Teletext - outdated and only for the over-40 generation? Not at all!
55 million touchpoints with potential customers
"Mobile is not a form of advertising, but a usage channel. That's why it's important to fully tap into the way customers move through the day and use media, and to meet them where they are with mobile advertising." This is the thesis of "Gruner + Jahr" manager Oliver von Wersch. And secondly: mobile is one of the most important customer touchpoints and therefore also a suitable channel for brand building - the question of the future is when a company meets the consumer in which situation with its advertising and how they can be interested in a campaign. Two assertions from a competent source. And promising prospects that speak for the success of teletext on the one hand, but also - and above all - for its online and mobile variants on the other.
Even though teletext is generally seen as a television information tool, it has long since made the transition to modern channels: the internet version is available at www.teletext.ch, and there is both a mobile portal (m.txt.ch) and a teletext app for smartphone users. Teletext has successfully established itself in the new media and generates over 55 million cross-media contacts per month: a good 33 million on TV teletext, around 18 million on the Internet and just under 4.3 million via mobile platforms. Teletext picks up customers where they are.
Successful product: mobile teletext
Teletext's success in the mobile sector has been a real surprise: the Teletext app for smartphones, which was launched in April 2009 and is subject to a charge, has been purchased over 93,000 times to date - plus around 122,000 downloads of the free launcher app for the mobile website m.txt.ch. Users are therefore not only looking for the simple and quick information options in teletext via the television channel, but also increasingly via new media. And the fee-based Teletext app seems to be popular with users: With 85 ratings, it achieves an average of four out of five possible stars.
Reputable channel - large return on the safe side
Teletext on television has existed in Switzerland since 1984. The angular, "pixelated" characters are well known to everyone and, in the age of HD television and cameras with well over ten megapixels, even have cult status. The simple presentation is obviously an essential part of the high credibility of teletext. Teletext is still perceived today - or even more so today - as a trustworthy, serious information channel that provides accurate and complete information about events - and has done so consistently for almost 30 years. Anyone who advertises in such an environment can be almost certain of a large response. And the fact that Teletext successfully closes the gap between conventional and new information channels benefits advertising customers. The cross-media offering makes Teletext mobile - in other words, a modern, far-reaching advertising space. Always there when users need it.
