Big-name brands buying into mobile marketing

When Pepsi QTG Canada wanted to put some pop into its soft drink sales, it knew it had to go beyond traditional marketing campaigns. If the firm wanted to reach the stomachs of young Canadians, it needed to connect with consumers where it counted: on their hips and at their fingertips.Executing such a campaign required more than experience and innovation, it needed fizz. So Pepsi turned to Proximity Canada to deliver the results, and 80/20 Solutions to track them.Proximity's past work has earned it accolades and an impressive roster of clientele. In 2006, Marketing Magazine named the marketing firm "Digital Agency of the Year," thanks in part to a client list that includes such industry heavyweights as the Royal Bank of Canada and itravel2000. More recently, however, they were the agency of record for Pepsi's Access campaign, which wrapped up on May 31st. The innovative loyalty campaign had customers creating accounts to accumulate points from PIN numbers on Pepsi products. Customers would then enter the PIN numbers online or through their mobile phones with a Pepsi shortcode. Although Pepsi declined requests for specific campaign analytics, Proximity's VP interactive, Andrew Bailey, says the campaign was "particularly successful."Not only was Proximity able to provide their customers with an immediate call-to-action, but they were able to incorporate several interactive elements into the mobile aspect of the campaign. "Where we started to really differentiate from the other stuff that was going on in the marketplace is that users could enter commands to look up their point balance from their mobile phones," explains Bailey. By giving users the ability to check their balance via SMS, consumers had the benefit of low user costs and the agency was able to benefit by tracking consumers' usage patterns.80/20's Marketing Control Centre (MCC) enables marketers to track consumer activity across multiple channels. The first platform of its kind to integrate mobile and online campaign execution, tracking and reporting, the MCC gives marketers considerable insight into their audience's behaviors. Once a user logs onto the Pepsi Access site, the MCC would report which pages she viewed, what activities she performed and whether she continued to interact with the brand via her mobile phone. The automated platform can be configured to send specific messages to different segments of consumers or to particular consumers based on their activities or self-proclaimed interests. "Marketers could create rules where if someday clicks on a link in an email, they are automatically sent a mobile coupon. It's actually triggered by user activity," explains 80/20's CEO Steve Irvine. "Marketers need to get to the point where they know all their touch points and they know all the different touch points of that consumer. Then you can stop and look and say, ‘Wow, based on what (this consumer) just did on the phone, they're now moved up to a high-level consumer for me. In exchange I'm going to email you a value coupon that you can bring to the store.'" The MCC communicates with multiple campaign channels in real time, creating a more fluid customer experience. "You've got to take a sort of horizontal view across all marketing, from a consumer's standpoint. You've got to make sure that all the campaigns you're running -- the mobile, online campaigns and each advertisement that you're doing -- have to be integrated and connected so that you can get one single view of your consumer and you can track consumers' experience across all your channels," explains 80/20's CEO, Steve Irvine."Marketers need to get to the point where they know all their touch points and they know all the different touch points of that consumer. Then you can stop and look and say, ‘Wow, based on what just did on the phone, they're now moved up to a high-level consumer for me. In exchange I'm going to email you a value coupon that you can bring to the store.'"Platforms like the MCC are enabling marketers to further target their audiences and create niche segments within their customer base. In terms of both customer satisfaction and return on investment, niche marketing is becoming one of the best practices in mobile marketing."The audience is really savvy to what they are and aren't interested in. You could really lose a lot of customers by delivering messages that they're not interested in receiving," adds Irvine. Giving customers what they want has never been more valuable: Informa Telecoms & Media predicts that mobile marketing will reach $11.35 billion in revenue by 2011. While SMS-based ads continue to dominate the realm of mobile marketing, niche marketing is emerging in even advertising-centred models.Yahoo Inc.'s oneSearch service -- a mobile take on their desktop search engine -- is quickly gaining momentum in Canada and abroad. Users type their query into their handset and are presented with relevant links, but also related text links and graphical ads from advertisers.Although unable to provide usage data, Michael Bayle, GM, mobile monetization, says that the service isn't luring advertisers away from their desktop platform and that many of their clients are purchasing space on both channels. "We're seeing increasing liquidity, with more than one advertiser per key word rapidly climb. We have dozens of new advertisers joining us," he says, including Home Depot and Roto-Rooter.High user data costs have forced Yahoo to limit the size of their graphical ads to less than 1 KB. But Bayle anticipates that rich media experiences aren't too far off. "Over time, I think you'll see more carriers offering flat rate data pricing, just as they have in Europe. Then you'll start to see more animated ads."Yahoo is already entering the realm of video, forming partnerships with MobiTV and UK-based Vodafone. "Already we're working with them to get advertisers to get video-based ads on mobile phones. We ourselves don't have video content on a Yahoo property. We work with our partners to best understand how to distribute this to our consumers," says Bayle.Although video ads present the greatest opportunity for innovative campaigns, high data costs and handset compatibility and functionality issues continue to hinder wide spread adoption. The New York Times reports that 8 million US mobile users, over the age of 12, viewed mobile video content in the first quarter of 2007; demonstrating that North Americans are following the usage trends sets by their European and Asian counterparts, albeit slowly.Recent efforts, such as Rogers Wireless and YouTube's partnership or that between Telus and MobiTV, and the launch of the much anticipated iPhone, will invariably encourage greater adoption of mobile videos and open the doors for more innovative advertising content.While content will ultimately drive customers' adoption of video services and ads, Virgin Mobile is taking a different approach. Their Sugar Mama program rewards customers with one minute of free air-time for watching video ads online and on their phones. Roughly 330,000 of Virgin Mobile USA's 4.8 million subscribers are signed up to the program, accounting for nine million minutes of free talk time.They've attracted an impressive roster of advertisers, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox division, and plan on expanding the program. "We're looking at (bringing it to Canada) quite seriously right now," says Virgin Mobile Canada's Andrew Bridge.But Virgin's Canadian customers can benefit from similar reward-based programs. Last January, Virgin launched Studio V, a user-generated content zone where customers upload wallpapers and ringtones online. Users can pick from approximately 3000 sounds and using the Studio V mixer, create their own songs. They can also upload their own photography or graphics to create artistic wallpapers. The artists are credited each time another user downloads their creation. Approximately 5 per cent of Virgin Canada's subscribers are actively using the service which has doled out over $100,000 in airtime credits to date. Studio V is self-promotion at its best."I think that it helps to differentiate us from a brand standpoint," explains Bridge. "We know our customer base is online savvy; that they love to create and share. They're part of the Facebook and YouTube generation and Studio V is a natural extension for them," It's also a way for Virgin Mobile to lure new customers and tap into a highly lucrative revenue source. According to Informa Telecoms & Media, the market for mobile communities and user-generated content will be worth US $13.1 billion by 2011."A lot of people are talking about creating that video or YouTube aspect to the phones," explains Irvine. "If I can capture the consumer and I own the phone that they're using, then they're registered users for me. I can communicate with them and I have a captive audience. If I own the phone, I own the consumer."

Big-name brands buying into mobile marketing

News | 07/19/2007 3:01 pm EDT

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