Corporate vehicle rental provider, Nexus, has added video text messaging to its communications mix. Nexus say the move is an industry first.

The capability is delivered through videocloud.com, a business video content and marketing platform that offers brands the chance to store and share their video content.

Nexus has initially used the service to communicate a ‘Power of Ten’ themed video campaign to potential customers, showcasing its award winning rental system, IRIS, the latest version of which enables bookings to be made in just ten seconds.

Hosted in the cloud, the video content is automatically optimised for streaming across all devices, which Nexus said allows them to share content in an advertisement and competitor free environment. Using "videotxt", as part of the service, video content can be sent to, or requested by, any mobile phone via SMS and is not reliant on the internet.

Sam Butterworth, head of marketing at Nexus, said: “As a Livingbridge backed business, with an innovative technology product, we were keen to explore digital communications channels in order to further underline our technology credentials and cement our position as being a leader in the field of corporate rental."

Butterworth continued: “Videocloud enables us to deliver an omni-channel, information rich approach to new business prospecting as well as disseminating targeted campaigns and promotions to our existing clients.”

Nick Bradley, cheif executive officer of Videocloud, said: “The service enables Nexus to deliver a genuine brand-to-hand experience to its target audiences regardless of their device or location – we have made video universal, device agnostic and easy to deploy.  Early-adopters of our videotext technology are enjoying a 92% view rate as opposed to the 2 or 3% that HTML email campaigns typically return. Mix that with the deep analytics, mobile phone number capture and live reporting and you can see why this is taking off.”