Archive for July 17th, 2009
Text Ad Campaigns
Mobile phones are an increasingly vital link to information, banking and commerce; 11% of the country’s 267 million mobile phone users own Internet-ready smart phones. In recent months brands including Buick, Kraft and Walmart and have been building “M sites”–mobile phone-ready versions of their Web sites. Alexandre Mars, chief executive of Phonevalley and head of mobile at Publicis Groupe, says M sites should be the first step in any company’s mobile marketing strategy. “You can’t teach your baby to run before it knows how to walk,” says Mars.
According to mobile research firm M:Metrics, 49% of American mobile phone users actively use text messaging, which explains marketers’ interest in text-based campaigns. Last year Ogilvy used text messaging in a test pilot with its then-client, mattress and bed manufacturer Select Comfort. Select Comfort bought ads in local newspapers, which instructed users to send the company an SMS message with their zip code. Select Comfort sent back the nearest store location along with a mobile coupon for $50 off. According to OgilvyOne’s Mandel, seven times more people texted in their responses than those who called in the company’s 1-800 number that was also in the advertisement.
Phonevalley’s Alexandre Mars says that both mobile banner ads and text-based campaigns have the advantage of being easy to scale. “The question is still the same,” Mars says. “How can you do it big? When you are talking to clients, you have to be scalable.” In October Phonevalley completed a campaign for Puma in China. Mobile phone users could download a mobile game, after which Puma sent them a coupon for a free phone toy accessory. One hundred and fifty-five thousand people downloaded the mobile game, and 70,000 redeemed the coupon in stores.
Click here to read the full article on forbes.com Cellphones: The New Billboards
