Cell Phone Beauties

Your cell phone rings. You answer it and it's a beautiful woman. You don't hear her voice, though — you see her. Or her photograph, at least, appearing on the screen.

That experience was enjoyed by several thousand people last month when Tel-Air Interests Inc., the firm that puts on the Miss Florida USA beauty pageant, teamed up with two other companies to deliver photos of contestants to cell phones.

The test had several objectives: To collect data on response rates, build a database and raise awareness about text messaging and photo delivery via cell phone.

Though the campaign had just started at press time, Tel-Air president Grant Gravitt Jr. was so impressed with response that he was planning a rollout of a mobile campaign in October to help promote the Florida Teen USA pageant.

Working with Tel-Air was DotPhoto Inc., which operates Pictavision technology, a way to view and share photos from wireless telephones. The other was Adversort Inc., a mobile device text messaging services supplier.

DotPhoto sent e-mails on July 15 to 200,000 or so customers who receive the firm's bimonthly newsletter, asking if they wanted to view contestants from the pageant. “One way to become familiar with Picatavision is to see those beautiful women on your phone,” said Samuel Kolodney, DotPhoto's vice president of marketing.

The week before — “contest week” — the three firms ran a mobile phone promotion about the July 12 pageant. People who registered their cell phone numbers on Miss Florida USA site received messages relating to the event.

The winner of the contest goes on to compete in the Miss USA pageant.

Meanwhile, Tel-Air Interests sent an e-mail alert to the 9,000 subscribers of the Miss Florida USA e-newsletter asking for their cell phone numbers to get the promotion. It also posted notices on pageant message boards. Registrants also had a chance to enter a sweepstakes to win tickets to the 2005 event.

About 850 registered on the Miss Florida site the first day. Text messages, which most phone carriers now read, were in English and Spanish.

The first text message, arriving on Tuesday of pageant week, said “Pageant Week starts [now] with 37 contestants. To view their pictures, go to www.missfloridausa.com.” A special password was provided so that respondents could be tracked.

Those recipients did not receive pictures because many carriers and cell phone brands are not compatible with Pictavision technology. It reaches only 4 million phones nationwide, but that number is growing, said Kolodney. For those whose phones are enabled, the Web site explains how to view photos.

“Even if Pictavision doesn't work for your current cell phone, we have 100% coverage on the Web sites,” said Tim Millard, senior vice president of marketing at Adversoft.

Wednesday's message offered a bit of trivia about the 2003 winner. By Thursday, fresh pictures of contestants were ready, so a text message drove recipients to Dotphoto.com to see them. Friday's message referred to a piece of news that occurred among competitors during the week. And since registrants provided the name of their local TV station when they signed up, a message reminded them to tune in there at the posted time. The pageant reaches 5 million TV viewers across the state.

On Saturday, during the event, cell phones displayed moments of beauty contest trivia at appropriate times. During the swimsuit competition, for instance, the message said, “Did you know that tape is used under swimsuits to keep them from riding up?”

Then, when there were only five finalists left, viewers got to vote for the winner through their cells. (This is just for fun and doesn't influence actual results.)

Meanwhile, Adversoft was able to collect valuable data. Registrants provided name, state, date of birth, telephone carrier, telephone number and local TV station.

Don't jump to any conclusions about photo recipients. Those most likely to receive them are women, not men. Females between the ages of 24 and 54 are the most avid fans of the Florida pageant. And women are DotPhoto's biggest demographic, too, because they like to keep — and keep up with — family pictures.