SMS advertising, permission and the consumer: a study

Purpose – This study aims to examine the phenomenon of consumers' willingness to give permission to receive short message service (SMS) advertisements. The purpose of this research is threefold: to better understand the phenomenon of consumers' willingness to give permission to receive text message (SMS) advertisements, to provide empirical data that supports our understanding, and to develop and test a basic model of consumers' willingness to give permission to receive SMS advertisements. Design/methodology/approach – The study utilised a multi‐method research approach with both qualitative and quantitative data – via focus group and scenario‐based survey. Findings – The results show that even if the relevance of the advertisement is high it does not on its own make consumers give permission; it needs to be combined with the control over opt‐in conditions to assure consumers and gain permission. Regarding brand familiarity, this appears to have little impact on consumers' willingness to give permission to receive SMS advertisements. The opt‐in conditions valued the most are: the possibility to withdraw at any time, personal data disclosure only with consent, and mobile phone operators as a primary advertising filter. Originality/value – The principal contribution of the paper is in furthering our understanding of the concept of permission as related to the emerging topic of SMS advertising. The paper provides evidence and data triangulation in an area that so far has had little empirical investigation.