Saturday is Valentine’s day and like previous years, Telstra has come up with a clever way to show and share the love on Valentine’s day. Telstra’s ‘Billboard of Love’ will showcase messages of love from tomorrow at 8:30am through midnight Sunday. You can send a message to your loved one in a very large, very powerful and very public display of affection.
The display is a 26m x 1m screen running 864×96 pixels (82,944 in total) and is located above Telstra’s store on the corner of Bourke St and Swanston St in Melbourne.
Don’t worry if you’re not located in Melbourne, everyone in Australia will be able to share the love. if your message gets onto the screen, Telstra will send you a photograph of it so can share it with your loved ones or share to your favourite social network. If you want to join in the conversation, you can add #telstraconnects to your post. As the nation’s largest telecommunication provider, it’s Telstra’s goal to connect people and this is a great way for a company to do that.
To make the magic happen, all you have to do is text your name and your Valentine’s name to 0499 MY LOVE (0499 695 683). Follow this format to make sure your message is shown: FIRST NAME [space] [SECOND NAME] + MESSAGE. The message should not be longer than 160 characters and should be letters only – no numbers or symbols. Messages are monitored and inappropriate content blocked so don’t bother trying. The message must be from an Australian mobile – international numbers are blocked so us Aussie’s have the best chance at having our messages shown.
For those who care a little more about the technology behind this, now annual, Valentine’s day project, it’s powered by an SMS and MMS Access Manager account (http://www.telstra.com.au/business-enterprise/mobility-solutions/mobile-messaging/telstra-access-messaging/) with some very cool customised scripts in the middle to compile the images and generate the replies. (The customised scripts aren’t a product, so that part isn’t available to customers or 3rd parties unfortunately).
Love you too Telstra..
