This week on the Tatango SMS Marketing Blog, Coca-Cola was taken to task – and apparently for good reason.
The beverage giant is facing a new class action lawsuit born of the assertion that consumers were unable to opt-out of receiving text messages. As we all know, that is a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
Coca-Cola apparently doesn’t understand that STOP means STOP, especially when you’re running an SMS marketing campaign.
According to the Tatango post, the Defendant, Shaghayegh Missaghi, says that she received the following message from the short code 2653, which spells the word ”COKE”:
“MyCokeRewards: Enter now for your chance to win Coke(R) and Pringles for a year. http://cokeurl.com/mSnacks NoPurNec. Ends 2/29/12 Reply HELP for help.”
Unfortunately, Shaghayegh couldn’t opt-out of the SMS campaign. And she went on to receive many more unwanted text messages.
“From my experience,” says Derek Johnson of Tatango, “this kind of issue is rarely the fault of the brand, and usually a technical issue with the SMS platform they’re using. This is why it’s super important to select the right SMS platform, and always do your own audits of the system to make sure everything is working as it should.”
