Procter Uses Phones to Sell Crest

Procter & Gamble Co. is launching a marketing campaign that involves bars, singles and mobile phones. The promotion, for Crest Whitening Plus Scope Extreme Toothpaste, involves consumers in a text-messaging game through London-based Flytxt Inc., a firm that specializes in mobile marketing. It is the first in several campaigns the companies plan to launch, this one being in partnership with author and relationship expert Samantha Daniels. Here’s how it works: Procter and Flytxt will distribute cocktail napkins printed with a code and directions to bars across the country. Visitors at the bar, presumably young dating types, punch in the number on their mobile phones to initiate the game. They then get back a series of questions, such as: “If you are on a date and your cell phone is ringing, what do you do?” After responding to the questions, the player gets a score that rates “Irresistibility IQ” and then gives a plug for the toothpaste. “It’s not super serious, you can see how a group of people in a bar would try this together,” said Carsten Boers, president of Flytxt Inc. Flytxt is among several firms Procter selected last year to help with a mobile marketing strategy, he said. Such marketing is common in Europe, largely because it is very cost-effective.