A missed call is a telephone call that is deliberately terminated by the caller before being answered by its intended recipient, in order to communicate a pre-agreed message. It is a form of one-bit messaging.
Missed calls are common in emerging markets where mobile phones with limited outgoing calls are widely-used; as the call is not actually completed and connected, it does not carry a cost to the caller, hence they can conserve their remaining prepaid credit. Specific patterns of consecutive missed calls have been developed in some countries to denote specific messages. The practice is referred to as beeping in Africa, flashing in Nigeria, and a miskol in the Philippines.
Missed calls are especially prominent in India. Expanding upon their use as a communications method, they have been adopted as a method of conducting marketing communications, in which users can 'missed call' specific numbers and receive a call or text back that contains promotional materials and other content. Other forms of services have also been built around use of missed calls in such a manner, primarily to take advantage of the fact that feature phones are still relatively common in India as opposed to smartphones, and mobile internet services have a low market share.
Video Missed call
Justification and impact
In emerging markets, prepaid mobile phone services are popular due to their relatively lower cost in comparison to post-paid services; in India, at least 90% of all cellular phone users are on prepaid services. Additionally, feature phones are still relatively common in these regions in comparison to smartphones. Prepaid plans have a limited number of minutes allotted for outgoing calls. As a missed call does not connect, it can be used to convey a communication whilst conserving their outgoing phone credit. Missed calls also lack a language barrier, since they do not require voice or text to be transmitted. Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode professor of marketing management Keyoor Purani remarked that in these climates, missed calls are an "economical and wide-reaching mechanism of communication."
The phenomenon has had an impact on cellular usage in countries where it is common, which resulted in some network operators expressing concerns that their capacity was being utilized in a manner they do not derive any revenue from. In August 2005, a Kenyan mobile operator estimated that four million missed calls were placed on their network daily. In 2006, industry estimates indicated that 20-25% of mobile calls in India were missed calls. In 2007, the Cellular Operators Association of India announced that it would conduct a study on the effects of missed calls on Indian mobile networks.
Also in 2007, "miskol", a Tagalog loanword for "miss call", was declared the "word of the year" at a language convention held by the University of the Philippines Diliman.
Maps Missed call
Use cases
Social usage
The information communicated by a missed call is pre-agreed and contextual in nature. They are typically an acknowledgement of the sender's status, such as indicating to someone that they have arrived at a destination, or a business informing a customer that their order is ready for pickup. Commonly-used patterns have been developed in some countries to indicate specific messages; in Bangladesh, two missed calls in a row is considered an indication that someone is running late, and in Syria, five missed calls in a row is considered a signal that the sender wishes to chat online. Young couples miscall one another to see if the line is free, or to intentionally keep the line busy. In Africa, there are established norms for how missed calls are used, such as indicating who should call back with a voice call (and thus, bear the responsibility of paying for it).
Despite the lack of established culture for missed calls in the United States, smartphone apps such as the Israeli-American startup Yo--a mobile messaging app which is only capable of sending the word "Yo" to other contacts, have been compared to the concept of missed calls.
Marketing and services
Missed calls have also been adopted as a method of permission marketing communications, especially within India, known as missed call marketing (MCM). Missed call marketing takes advantage of how phone services may offer unlimited incoming calls and text messaging; advertisements for products of services may contain a call to action instructing viewers to place a missed call at a specific number. The number being phoned may be automatically configured to automatically hang up on the caller. After the call is made, the number responds by calling or texting back with a response, such as information, advertising (such as product information, offers, and sponsored celebrity messages), or other pre-recorded messages. Numbers may also be retained by advertisers for future correspondence, which can be used to build a customer database for future engagement and analytics.
A number of vendors have emerged with a specific focus on providing solutions for MCM, including Flashcall, VivaConnect (who exclusively partnered with Facebook to offer missed call advertising units on the social networking service), and Zipdial. Zipdial first achieved prominence during the 2010 Indian Premier League and 2011 Cricket World Cup, when it offered a service that texted news updates from the events to callers and collected demographic information. During the Indian anti-corruption movement, a Zipdial number advertised for pledging support for Anna Hazare's campaign received 4.5 million calls--significantly outpacing the amount of Facebook likes and Twitter retweets that posts relating to the campaign received online. Zipdial served over 415 million calls in its first three years of operation, and was acquired by Twitter in 2015 for a value reported to be between US$20-40 million.
In 2013, Hindustan Unilever launched Kan Khajura Tesan (Earworm Radio), a missed call service which plays blocks of Hindi entertainment content (such as Bollywood music and devotionals), interspersed with advertising for the company's brands. Unilever intended the service to be a method of engaging consumers in markets that were underserved by media and internet communications (such as Bihar, where the service has been described as the state's most popular "radio station"); as of 2015, it had achieved 200 million impressions, and also expanded to allow advertising from third-party companies that do not compete in Unilever product segments, as well as interactive features. In 2014, KKT earned two gold Cannes Lions in media for "Use of Audio" and "Use of Mobile Devices", and a third in mobile for "Response/Real Time Activity". In 2015, the campaign won a bronze Lion for Creative Effectiveness. In the same year, a campaign promoting the film Singham Returns through the service generated 17 million missed calls.
Expanding upon the phenomenon, some Indian banks allow customers to conduct services such as checking balances or money transfers by placing missed calls to designated numbers, and some television reality competitions conduct televoting by asking viewers to make a missed call to specific numbers. On 31 January 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's monthly radio address Mann Ki Baat became available over phones via a missed call number; a government official stated that from 31 January to 23 February 2016, over 30 million calls were made to the number, and 20 million unique calls were returned. Political parties have also used missed call marketing as part of outreach and fundraising campaigns.
These additional use cases appeal primarily to India's culture and economic environment; internet access is not widely available in some rural regions, there is low market penetration for mobile internet services, and missed calls were a commonly-accepted and well-known practice. While Flashcall initially focused on offering its services in Pakistan and the United States, the company found a cultural barrier in the U.S. because missed calls were not an established practice, while smartphones and mobile internet services were widely available. The company pulled out of the market and elected to focus on regions where the concept of MCM was more viable. MCM practices have also faced criticism; Purani warned that "just as shortsighted abuse of advertising, direct mail and telemarketing has contributed to spamming-related problems, MCM runs the risk of degenerating into a marketing tool shunned by a large number of phone users." High-end brands have also been hesitant to engage in MCM, perceiving the practice as inappropriate for targeting their respective markets.
As activism
In January 2013, a protest was organized against high mobile internet data rates in Bangladesh, in which protestors simultaneously exchanged millions of missed calls, aiming to overload the cellular network.
See also
- Phone tag
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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