Globe Anti-spam Drive Cited as a Crowd-sourcing Campaign Likely to Become Top Consumer Trend in 2015

Globe Telecom’s anti-spam drive is a great example of crowd-sourcing campaign expected to become one of the top consumer trends in 2015, according to trendwatching.com.

A well-respected authority on consumer trends, trendwatching.com compiled 10 key trends that will shape Asian consumerism this year. The report was released last month.

“From Manila to Mumbai, 2015 will see the pace of change and innovation (will) continue to accelerate across Asia. The evolution of consumer expectations is endless, and the year ahead will be one where fortunes are made, remade and unmade in every corner of APAC. Trends aren’t really the point; opportunities are. Each one of the 10 trends highlights a key, actionable innovation opportunity that could see youserve, delight, surprise or build stronger relationships with consumers,” the agency said.

One of such trends is “better together”which means generating crowd action for concrete change. Trendwatching.com forecasts that brands, governments and institutions will tap consumer action and participation in effecting lasting change.

Trendwatching.com then cited as a great example Globe Telecom’s anti-spam campaign: “Philippine major telco provider Globe Telecom launched its #StopSPAM campaign in June 2014 with an online platform allowing mobile users to report and fight text spams/scams. Alleged spammers are issued warnings, and persistent offenders deactivated from the service,” it noted. Established in 2002, trendwatching.com provide information that help forward-thinking business professionals in 180+ countries understand the new consumer and subsequently uncover compelling, profitable innovation opportunities. (trendwatching.com/trends/10-asian-trends-for-2015/)

Globe initiated early last year its most comprehensive and aggressive campaign to combat proliferation of spam messages. As part of the campaign, Globe made available on a company web page a channel through which its customers can report text spams and text scams alike. Customers simply have to go to www.globe.com.ph/stopspam and provide all the details required. Numbers that are reported to be source of text spams are first sent warnings and those that are persistent source of text spams are deactivated from the service.

Globe Telecom’s anti-spam campaign prompted the National Telecommunications Commission to ordertwo local companies to immediately stop sending spam messages to customers of Globe, providing respite to Globe customers who constantly receive annoying spam messages. The NTC’s directive stemmed from separate complaints filed by Globe Telecom against the two companies whose agents and employees were involved in sending unsolicited promotional text messages to Globe mobile customers.

The company also put into operation in August last year a filtering mechanism, which prevents the transmittal of spam and scam messages to mobile devices. The volume of messages blocked by the network filtering system averages about 140,000/day. As of January 19, Globe has so far blocked close to 10 million spam and scam messages.

Aside from the web page dedicated to its anti-spam campaign, customers may also report via the Globe website through Talk2Globe Chat (chat.globe.com.ph); send a message through Globe Contact Form (globe.com.ph/talk2Globenow) and by tweeting @Talk2GLOBE on Twitter. They can put in the number, the exact message, and the time and date the text spam was received.