Payless ShoeSource Canada is launching a text-based discount offer program to Canadian SMS enthusiasts. Any who text AMOUR in Quebec or PAYLESS in the rest of Canada to 77777 will receive discount offers on their next purchase from the Toronto-based division of the Kansas-based discount shoe retailer.

To cash in, the consumer simply flashes the message on their phone at the register. Those who participate will receive future text offers, and opt-out options will be included for those who no longer wish to participate.

Payless spokeperson Mardi Larson said that the strategy was a great success in the States, so they decided it was time to bring it to Canada.

‘We’ve done offers like this to our American texting community, and now we’ve learned that Canadians are among the top texters in the world,’ Larson tells MiC. ‘It’ll take a Canadian consumer who loves to text to initiate the process, because they have to text us first to get the first offer.’

There is a modest print campaign featuring ads for the new text program placed in Hello magazine and Metro commuter papers in Toronto and Montreal, and Larson says that a social media component will be integrated in the coming months.