For many people, election time is a stress-inducing flurry of marketing campaigns. People send out letters, call peoples’ homes, and promote commercials. However, there is one thing that they can’t do: text.
Federal Law generally prohibits sending text messages to anyone who hasn’t given prior consent. This is supposed to discourage spamming text messages that cost people money if they don’t have an unlimited texting plan.
However, one Virginia marketing and polling firm made efforts to get around this law. They set up questionable websites which sent out anti-Obama text messages. To get around the law, they technically sent out emails that showed up as text messages for people who link their phones with their emails.
The company, ccAdvertising, is now being targeted by the media and actions are being taken to close this loop hole. CcAdvertising has a history of sending questionable texts and has been sued for this exact action.
It is actually fascinating to see the lengths that people will go to in order to promote their ideas and their choice in candidate. Are text messages so much more effective that it warrants breaking the law?
Here is one of those groundbreaking texts, “Medicare goes bankrupt in 4000 days while Obama plays politics with senior health.”
How reliable is this argument? I wouldn’t put much faith in a statistic from an unknown source. Even with an outsider’s perspective, I can’t imagine that an advertising company can predict what will happen 11 years from now.
Their argument is weak and it appears like a lot of work to go through to make claims so close to the election. Also, text messages in general are a less formal and less reliable form of rhetoric than a letter or an email. Granted, their message did get distributed, just not in the most favorable light.