Christian Audigier's vintage tattoo wear maker Ed Hardy ran a mobile coupon effort this Christmas meant to drive people in-store. The campaign left its mark.

The Cox Media cable network ran ads to support the campaign. These ads encouraged viewers to text in to receive promotions for the fashion brand.

"The strategy for this client's campaign was to build up their mobile VIP database in order to remarket the Ed Hardy VIP Club nights," said Shira Simmonds, president of Ping mobile, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

"Ed Hardy was also trying to drive visitors to the store and increase sales of their merchandise; and to create "hype" about the VIP Club nights and the Ed Hardy brand," she said.

Ping Mobile powered the Ed Hardy Christmas campaign. In less than a week this campaign generated a double opt-in rate of 73.8 percent.

In other words, of the people that texted in, 73.8 percent double-opted-in to receive further content from Ed Hardy.

Commercials on the Cox Media cable network encourage viewers to text HARDY to the common short code 269411.

Users that texted in got an SMS that said, "Present this coupon @ the Ed Hardy store @ 905 E. University Blvd, Main Gate Square & get 10% OFF Your purchase from now until Xmas eve!"

They then received another text that said, -- Reply YES 2 join the Xclusive Ed Hardy Mobile VIP club & get discounts, special offers, invites 2 VIP parties & more! Standard txt rts aply. Reply YES Now!"

"One of the challenges was coming up with an offer that was both enticing and sexy," Ms. Simmonds said.

"We decided that offering a 10 percent discount off all store merchandise was a great offer that would create a strong call to action and drive people to text in," she said.

This isn't the first time that Ping Mobile has powered a text campaign.

Cox Media and the Pensacola Interstate fair used mobile to inform their target audience of all the promotions and discounts available at the event.

Ping Mobile powered the mobile campaign, which encouraged consumers to text the keyword FAIR to the short code 29411 to get special offers and promotions (see story).

Also, Las Vegas' Orleans Stadium Hotel and Casino used mobile to promote a Steve Miller Band performance and create a database of concert-goers for future communication.

The calls to action for the sweepstakes campaign built around the concert were in television commercials and on promotional flyers at the musical festival. Consumers were asked to text keywords STEVE to 74642, a Ping Mobile short code (see story).

"Mobile was an excellent fit for Ed Hardy because their brand's clientele and target demographic are young people aged between 18-34 and consider themselves to be cool, trendy and on the cutting edge," Ms. Simmonds said.

"This theory was more than proven with this campaign," she said.