Chaos set in at one of Britain's largest shopping centres with the launch of the world's first location-sensitive mobile phone advertising initiative.

About 150 retailers based at the Lakeside shopping mall in Essex signed up to ZagMe, a new service which sends text messages to shoppers in the area, offering special deals and giveaways.

On arriving at the mall, shoppers were invited to register with ZagMe to receive the special messages.

During their time at Lakeside they were offered deals by shops such as Pizza Hut, Debenhams, The Gap, Argos and Top Shop, broadcast randomly by ZagMe.

The launch was judged a huge success, with shops offering popular deals inundated within minutes by eager punters who rushed around the centre in the hope of being first in the queue for giveaways.

In one case, sportswear company Reebok offered a free pair of trainers to the first person to get to the store with the ZagMe message.

Four minutes later, the shop was crammed with 50 hopefuls.

ZagMe appeared to take off fastest among the 18 to 24-year-old market, Britain's heaviest users of text messaging and most eager bargain-hunters.

ZagMe's chief executive, Bill Green, was delighted with the launch.

He said: "It's way ahead of expectations. People love it and retailers are enjoying it as they've already seen it's a powerful mechanism to channel people into stores with simple loss-leaders."

Participating companies aim to lure customers into stores with attractive, even loss-making, special deals, in the hope they will spend more money once they are inside.

ZagMe is on trial at Lakeside until January, when it will be extended to the M25's other shopping giant, Bluewater.

If its success continues, the company will expand to cover busy high streets and shopping centres such as Brighton's Churchill Square and Crawley's County Mall by the middle of next year.

The company also has plans to make ZagMe more interactive, so users can send text messages to the company asking it to seek out bargains.

You can register for ZagMe at www.zagme.com or by visiting a Zagpoint at Lakeside.