In China, Coca Cola Corp. said it saw millions of responses during a promotion in China in which mobile phone owners were encouraged to guess the highest daily temperature in Beijing, with winners receiving a variety of prizes.

Agency.com oversaw an SMS-based trivia contest in 500 pubs across the U.K. in March. And later this summer, Adversoft launched an SMS campaign for the feature film "xXx," targeting moviegoers in the U.S.

But those campaigns may represent only the tip of the iceberg to come, with some feeling that texting has yet to really have its day in the sun by being applied to a mass audience in earnest.

For one thing, marketers at major companies remain bearish on the value of text messaging to appeal to a wide audience.

This is true even in Europe, where SMS, and SMS campaigns, have been far more prevalent than in North America. A recent study from the U.K. office of Pitney Bowes found that established direct marketing media were believed to be more effective than SMS by marketing executives at 1,000 top U.K. companies.

Many of those polled thought that SMS might fare well only in "niche audiences, such as the youth market or the early adopter psychological segment," said Pitney Bowes spokesman Paul Lindsell.

As a result, the respondents said that they generally expect to see SMS response rates coming in below direct mail and telemarketing for mass-market campaigns.

Selling to the Marketers

One of the reasons that mainstream marketers haven't caught onto SMS, some say, is that the medium's advocates are still too weak. Like many new media marketing firms in the post-dot-com era, boutique ad agencies that concentrate on wireless messaging are suffering from long sales cycles and a shortage of resources needed to sell big-ticket campaigns.

"In Europe, we've seen a lot of activity, with things starting to pick up in the last six months, but the big challenge stems from the companies that are providing the services," said Daren Siddall, an analyst at GartnerG2. "They are still very small, so their resources dictate that they can't go out there and grab lots of new businesses. They don't have the bandwidth, and are working ad hoc for existing clients."

Instead, Siddall said, wireless agencies like 12step and FlyTxt are concentrating on "locking in" clients to longer-term relationships. In many cases, that means handling work only sporadically, as slender high-tech and marketing budgets dictate.

While many advertisers might be loath to launch standalone SMS campaigns, a growing number are testing the medium by rolling text components into their multi-channel efforts.

For example, recent television programs in the U.K., and to a lesser extent in the U.S., have indicated that TV audiences would be willing to vote via SMS in response to televised polls.

In October, U.K. agency FlyTxt launched a campaign with Gossard lingerie that used SMS as the only direct response channel -- one of the first such efforts in Europe. According to sources familiar with the campaign, it was a success, generating 20,000 immediate replies to a discount offer -- well above the expected return.

Additionally, a recent GartnerG2 survey of European adults found that they are increasingly familiar with the act of replying to TV programs and ads via SMS. In the U.K., Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, France and Germany, 5 to 10 percent of respondents over the age of 15 said that they had sent a text message in response to a show, competition or prize drawing.

Tying SMS into multi-channel efforts serves not only as a way to demo the medium, but also as a way to glean customer information. Gossard, for instance, collected users' cell phone numbers and demographic data in return for its special offer.

As a result, even though they might not be entirely sold on the medium's present ability, some clients are aiming to collect customers' wireless information in hopes of being able to better monetize it later.

"At this stage, they're still building their databases -- their potential contacts they can use next year," Siddall said.

Still, until the industry sees more positive results like those from "xXx," Gossard and Heineken, Siddall also that advertisers are likely to categorize SMS as only suitable for youth markets continues to hold back the industry.

"SMS is spreading throughout the population, and isn't dominated by the under-35 category," he said. "But [advertisers] are thinking that for getting a chance of success, they still need to target the youth market."