In May of 2011, Coca-Cola's Director of International Media, Gavin Mehrotra, announced that "SMS is [our] number one priority" in mobile marketing. One mobile analyst called it "a true bombshell announcement" that shocked the large marketing conference at which it was made. "The world's undisputed number one advertising brand, Coca Cola, says categorically, SMS is priority number one," the pundit wrote. "Wow."

Coca-Cola's big bet on SMS is revealing: for vast populations, SMS is the first readily accessible data channel, suitable not only for advertising but for governance, banking, and many other services.

That is why all businesses, big and small, need to embrace this relatively new form of mass communication and use it to effectively influence their target market.