The primary objective was to educate consumers about the hows and whys of texting. Secondly, we needed to build awareness of AWS's sponsorship of AI and how only AWS subscribers could vote via texting. We also aimed to attract entries to a sweepstake to 'Get inside American Idol', and win a trip to Hollywood, which provided an even greater incentive to send a text message.

Mediaedge:cia developed the whole partnership concept with American Idol (AI), brokered the deal and created a complete on and off-air support package.

A single sponsorship deal changed the habits and behaviour of America's mobile phone owners. This was the first time text messaging had been employed for voting in US TV and it was used in a targeted sponsorship of the hottest youth property since the launch of MTV. It had the added leverage of exclusivity, with only AT&T Wireless subscribers able to use text messaging to get inside AI. The campaign also provided seamless integration of the product capabilities into the program, on-air education about text messaging and ultimately created a level of awareness which jumpstarted the US messaging market.