Nov 16, 2009 at 02:55 PM
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What is Txstation?

We've been hearing a lot about txtstation, which is a mobile marketing company aimed at specializing in the sports and entertainment space. Txtstation has been around for a while, but in recent months, the company has cut deals with several professional teams including the New York Mets, Miami Dolphins, Phoenix Coyotes and Phoenix Suns to name a few. So what is Txtstation?


Txtstation aims to offer teams, their partners and their fans with a suite of mobile interactivity promotions ranging from live polling, picture to screen, and text to screen. Teams and sponsors can communicate with viewers or fans directly through mobile phones, Internet, and landlines. To see it in action, check out this demo for the Washington Capitals.

Txtstation is ideally used as an activation platform for teams' existing mobile partners like AT&T and Verizon Wireless, but the extensions can apply to team partners outside of the mobile and technology space as well.

For instance, the Mets next season will include the following mobile promotions to sponsors:

  • the Verizon Fan Choice Awards, a nightly poll enabling fans to voice their opinion on various Mets topics;
  • the Wise Eight Inning Sing Along, allowing fans to vote on which song should be played during the 8th inning break;
  • Caesar's Fan Forum, a chance for fans to express their take on a pre-determined subject via text message;
  • Xerox Fan Photos, which displays image submissions in a slideshow-like manner.

    Txtstation has also powered mobile activations at the Fifa World Cup, Live Earth, the NFL Network and the Democratic National Convention.

    "With the LA Lakers season broadcast we achieved a significant increase in advertising revenues and with the NFL Raiders broadcast the results of the Txt-to-TV campaign were outstanding. In addition to an increase in ad revenues we had up to 5% of the total viewing audience participating in the text competition during the live broadcast and subsequently 37% of these participants continued to participate in txt trivia questions, 1.5% purchased merchandise, and 20% provided demographic information," Jeff Proctor Vice President / Senior Executive Producer KCBS/KCAL Sports said.

    Txtstation appears to offer a valuable service for not only entertaining fans and generating value-add sponsor interactions, but also in generating leads and gathering valuable fan data. With half of all mobile users accessing content on a weekly basis, there is clearly a strong need for cross-platform engagement applications. It will be interesting to keep an eye on which environments - sports bar, home, stadium, etc. - stimulate the most demand from fans, and how teams and sponsors adapt their call-to-action to these specific usage patterns.