Is mobile marketing destined to be deleted?

Unsolicited SMS messages are designed for our mobile-focused world, but they could face a similar fate to email spam

A prescient episode of The Simpsons (season 12, episode 14) referred to advertising as a three-pronged attack - subliminal, where the message was hidden; liminal, which was conventional advertising; and superliminal, which was shouting the message at random people in the street.

Today, some companies choose to take the superliminal concept further by effectively shouting at us via SMS. If your number gets onto an advertiser's list, you are on the receiving end of a relentless stream of calls and texts. Many of these do not involve other people, since the calls are generated by automated software and if you pick up, you hear a recorded message.