Mobile entertainment community Limbo ran SMS advertising campaigns for leading Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The campaigns delivered more than 1million SMS impressions across the two campaigns.

The results are proof that SMS advertising can be a useful tool for candidates to influence consumer attitudes and voting behavior, a Limbo executive said.

"The campaigns scored 53 percent awareness, in line with other SMS programs, but higher than might be expected from traditional forms of media," said Rob Lawson, chief marketing officer of Limbo, Burlingame, CA. "The overall impact was considerable with 28 percent altering their voting intentions."

Limbo is a mobile entertainment community that uses SMS, mobile Web, mobile video, Web and email to integrate brands throughout unique games, content and community.

Six percent of those surveyed after the campaigns said that the SMS advertising had changed their voting intentions significantly. Seven percent of men surveyed said their voting intentions changed as a result of the campaigns.

Also, 7 percent of survey respondents age 35-plus and 9 percent of African Americans said the campaigns changed their voting intentions. And an additional 22 percent said their intentions had been changed a little.

The campaigns also changed a lot of people's perception of candidates.

Fourteen percent said that their perceptions of the candidate was now more positive than before seeing the campaign, with only 4 percent saying it was now more negative. Barack Obama saw the biggest lift, with a net gain of 16 percent.

The campaigns also functioned to drive greater interaction with the candidate across other paid and non-paid media.

Thirty-seven percent paid more attention to news coverage about the candidate as a result of seeing the campaigns. Twelve percent became more aware of other marketing for the candidate. Seven percent visited the candidate's Web site, with a further 24 percent intending to do so in the future.

In addition, 5 percent visited the candidate's mobile Web site. A further 9 percent plan to visit the candidate's mobile Web site in the future.

Limbo asked recipients of the campaign how happy they were to see the candidates advertised via the Limbo service. Fifty-six percent of people said they were happy, but13 percent said they would have preferred not to see SMS advertising from political candidates.

Men were more comfortable than women to receive the campaigns, Limbo claimed, with respondents ages 25-34 most happy.

"The hopeful candidates are expected to spend over $20 million on Super Tuesday alone and over $500 million before the end of the presidential race in 2008," Mr. Lawson said.

"It will be interesting to see how the choose to use the mobile channel, but the research indicates it will yield useful results," he said.