"For sale: Baby shoes, never worn" - Hemingway’s six-word novel is a poignant example of how powerful the stripped-down and minimalistic can be. It also shows that when faced with two explanations or representations – the simplest one is always the best.A mobile text message can only fit 160 characters. Still, it is enough space to explain exactly how we feel or retell a series of events. So drawing from these insights, surely there must be a simpler way - a text message way - of explaining things from the crux of Bob Dylan’s lyrics, the Bible, the rules of Cricket or even the meaning of life.This was the foundation of the campaign 'Mess is More' (“Mess” being the Swedish popular name for mobile text messages), that sought to increase 15-25 year olds loyalty to the mobile operator Halebop as well as text messaging traffic.To do this, Halebop engaged customers in writing text message versions of anything. The content collected served as an infinite source for generating media publicity.Mess is More is one of the most successful campaigns of its kind to be carried out in Sweden. 60,000 people engaged in the campaign and texting traffic jumped by 27%.

For Halebop it was imperative to find a strategy that:1. Remained a safe distance from price plans ("cause you can win a battle, but not the war").2. Got the Halebop brand associated with texting (cause Halebop must defend its position as the market leader in text messaging).3. Help increase customer loyalty and ultimately the volume of text messages in the Halebop network. (because recruiting new customers is more expensive than retaining current ones).

The campaign was 50% planned and 50% ad hoc. This made it possible to continuously tip off the media about any interesting text messages that were entered.Execution: six week period, June-September 2008:1. Launching the sitePre-launch to brand hang arounds through halebop.se, text messages and newsletter.Core users helped spread the word.2. Collecting the text messagesWeekly competitions – winners got published in the upcoming Mess is More book.Publicity was acheived in unexpected media that normally do not write about text messaging, primarily Arts, Politics and Literature segments.3. The Book LaunchA Swedish author picked 585 text versions well worthy of being published.The book was released on The National Book Fair in Gothenburg. A guerrilla activity took place when journalists travelling to the event by train received a sneak preview of the book. The book itself was an important PR tool to generate traditional coverage.

The campaign took place over six weeks during summer 2008, with enormous interest recorded amongst the target group and their own customers. In the first week, so much traffic was recorded that the campaign site actually crashed.The campaign led to a 27 percent increase in text messages sent through Halebop’s networks compared to the same period last year. It also generated publicity in all types of media, national print, radio, high brow culture blogs and word-of-mouth on the internet.We gathered 1 700 entries for the book with eventually 585 chosen for publishing. 63,000 Halebop customers participated and cast their votes on the campaign site.

The campaign concept ‘Mess is More’ is a pun intended to reference ‘Less is More’ and where ‘Mess’ is Swedish slang for text message. A campaign site acted as a hub for the campaign where Halebop’s customers were challenged to summarise difficult topics.The two critical success factors were:1. Maximize use of own channels – fill campaign site with content that could be shared in social media.2. Use collected text message versions to target specific media - For example: When receiving a text message version of the Bible, Halebop targeted religious media with it, when receiving a text message version on the Pride Festival, Halebop targeted gay media, etc.Halebop authorised running PR activities and competitions, and in this way have tied themselves closer to around 10 000 of their own clients that are true text message enthusiasts. A campaign site acted as hub for the campaign where Halebop’s customers were challenged to summarise difficult topics such as ‘How the universe works’, ‘The point of Coldplay’s music’ or ’The rules of cricket’. The best text messages ended up in a book.

For any mobile operator, the 15 to 25 year old market is a tough one to please and is very disloyal. Preference is a function of current price plans and which operator your friends have at the moment. Competition is fierce and jumping from operator to operator in chase for the perfect deal has virtually turned into a sport.