| Old dogs learn new tricks |
| Monday, 07 July 2003 | |
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FT Creative Business, 08 July 2003 - Mobile specialists - the new kids on the block - have come of age and established agencies want some of the action. When 12Snap became the first mobile phone specialist advertising agency to win a coveted award at the last month's Cannes Advertising festival, its staff were surprised as anyone. "It shocked us," admits Cyriac Roeding, Chief executive of the German based agency. "We thought it would be impossible to win against the big established agencies." The Silver Lion award was for a campaign for the Sony Playstation 2 games console, in which 5000,000 German youngsters were invited to listen to a recorded mobile phone message from an irritating grandmother threatening to pay a visit over Christmas.The kids could then send the greeting onto their friends and send their parents another message, ostensibly from Father Christmas, telling them that their child wanted a Playstation2.The campaign had a dramatic effect on sales. According to independent market research cited by the Cannes jury, more than 25 per cent of participants ended up receiving a Playstation2 console as a present, compared with 5 per cent in a control group. The Cannes prize is just the latest indication that the mobile advertising medium, which is barely three years old, has begun to enter the mainstream. "We always said that when we started working with Coca-Cola we would know this had become a serious business," says Lars Becker, Chief Executive of mobile advertising specialist Flytxt. "Well, we ran a campaign with them at the beginning of this year." In fact, an increasing number of big consumer brands have included McDonald's, Pepsi, Wella, Mars, Wrigley's, Reebok, Mastercard, Nike, Gossard, Nestle and Ford. A turning point was the Txt 'n Win campaign that Flytxt ran for Cadbury at the end of 2001. The concept was simple: a unique code was printed on each Cadbury chocolate wrapper. Consumers sent a text message with this code to Cadbury to find out if they had won a prize. The campaign generated 5m responses - an unheard of response for this type of competition, and it received special mention in the annual accounts as a key factor behind a 21 per cent rise in sales. "Once something like that gets included in the annual accounts and CEOs see it, it has a real impact on the market, " says Victoria Moffatt, head of strategey at Ogilvy Interactive, which became one of the first traditional creative agencies to begin offering mobile services at the start of 2003. Ogilvy's entry into mobile advertising, too is a sign of the medium's credibility. But it also highlights one of the defining characteristics of an industry hitting the big time: Suddenly there is a lot more competition for business. And is brings into focus the future relationship between any agency, specialist or full-service, and the mobile operator. Among UK operators, there are already divisions between Vodafone, which contracts out work to Flytxt and shows little interest in doing advertising in house; and O2 which has run its own services for the likes of Mars, as well as entertainment link-ups, such as its partnership with Channel 4 on Big Brother. Predictably, the mobile specialists are somewhat sceptical about the new entrants. "When you create a campaign for a company like Coca-Cola you are working with 15 brand managers every day for nine months to make sure that each of the 150 different logos and ringtones you are sending gives exactly the right impression of the company. Can you imagine an operator doing that?" asks Roeding. "For an advertising agency, of course, that is their business, but then, they don't understand the mobile side." But Ogilvy's Moffatt dismisses claims that the technicalities are that difficult to get into. "It's the nature of tech companies to mystify their technology, but we have a lot of sophisticated technical people in-house." O2 meanwhile, believes that while it lacks specific advertising expertise, strong customer relationships and the power of the O2 brand will be enough to create demand. However, even Ogilvy has a specialist technology partner, WIN, to ensure access to the latest texting and mobile developments. It argues that such boutique mobile specialists will always have their place. "A comapany like Ogilvy will never be doing the leading edge trials with picture messaging or MMS - that's what the mobile companies are good at. There will always be a need for that niche," says Moffatt. And the specialist firms are trying to stay ahead of the game by looking forward beyond text messaging campaings to features such as mobile coupons and location-based advertising that should be introduced over the next few years. Growing momentarily bullish, Roeding predicts that, in five years, mobile advertisers will not just be taking home more awards from Cannes. They will have a category of their own. © Copyright Flytxt Ltd 2006. Unauthorized use of any content constitutes a material breach. |
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