Cuervo Tequila is claiming a phenomenal 80% success rate to a recent mobile marketing campaign, which is being picked up by the marketing press, like this article in Revolution.

80% would indeed be impressive, but if you dig a little deeper, I really don’t think it would have been much different using traditional techniques.

Cuervo firstly ran a PR-based campaign, supported by radio and posters offering people the chance to win tickets to a free party in a London nightclub. If you wanted to enter, you texted in and you were put into a free prize draw.

There are no figures for entries received and anyway, you couldn’t possibly say what percentage of people exposed to the message entered it. However, it’s probably fair to say that the immediacy and ease of entry boosted response rates to this element of the campaign.

The winners were then selected and sent their tickets in the form of an sms voucher. Of those who won, 80% turned up to the party on the night. In other words, 80% of people who had entered a competition to win tickets for a free party they had already said they wanted to go to, claimed their prize. Actually, I’m surprised it was that low!

Cuervo and their agency should certainly get a small pat on the back for using mobile as part of the marketing mix - although running a free prize draw by sms, rather than snail mail, is a bit of no-brainer these days. It would be like congratulating someone 10 years ago for allowing people to enter by post, as opposed to carrier pigeon.

But this isn’t pushing back the envelope of mobile marketing and the 80% response is no great leap forward for mobile marketing or marketing in general.

Intelligent mobile marketing can certainly achieve impressive results, but let’s not pretend it can achieve miracles.