| Mobile Marketing - A Mobile Response |
| Wednesday, 30 March 2005 | |
|
Marketing - More of us send text messages than know what the red button on our TV does, so why aren't more brands using mobile to interact? How many of us have used our mobiles to vote to kick out a contestant on Big Brother? How about trying to win some cash by answering questions on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The answer is quite a few of us, and advertisers are catching on.The use of mobile phones, especially for texting, is rising as part of our everyday TV consumption. Just five years ago we were staring passively at the TV; now we are being invited to take part. Programmes such as Endemol's Big Brother, shown on Channel 4, and Celador's Millionaire, which airs on ITV, have opened advertisers' eyes to the possibility that the audience could interact with a brand on TV in a new way. According to Simon Gunning, head of interactive media at Celador International, the way in which people interact with TV has changed fundamentally. Viewers expect more than just a linear video stream and are more than willing to use their mobiles to interact. 'Over the past 18 months, mobile has come into the frame more than red-button activity,' he says. 'Think of who that audience is: you can see the opportunities for brands.' Yet, despite the huge success of these programmes and the ubiquity of the mobile phone, there hasn't been a parallel rise in TV ad campaigns being integrated with a mobile element. One reason is that firm figures are not easy to come by and no-one wants to be on the bleeding edge of a marketing revolution. Nick Wiggin, chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association, believes the area of credibility is being addressed. 'There is an issue in getting everyone to release their data,' he says. 'We are trying to create a forum to develop some guidelines to set up a mobile currency that the whole industry can use.' Despite being hampered by this lack of firm data, the mobile marketing industry is growing and success stories are starting to emerge. The area that is seeing most growth is the use of mobile as a direct response medium for TV ads. Pamir Gelenbe, director of Flytxt, which works with clients including Coca-Cola, Muller and Orange, says the agency is seeing a boom in direct response ads. 'Text is proving to be a very powerful direct response mechanism,' he says. 'More than the traditional phone ever was - people can't be bothered to make a phone call, but a text is so immediate.' Integrating campaigns Muller, the yoghurt and dessert company, ran an integrated TV and mobile campaign in conjunction with Flytxt to tie in with the release of the recent Bridget Jones sequel. It believes mobile marketing is a great way of extending the brand experience. 'With direct response campaigns using postcode- and address-finders, you can engage with consumers and add value to TV advertising through dialogue, rather than simply talking "at" the consumer,' says a Muller spokeswoman. While direct response advertising is booming, mobile mark-eting has not formed part of many truly integrated campaigns, which could enhance the relationship between advertiser and consumer, above just text-to-win or vote. One brand that is trying to harness the power of mobile beyond the level of direct response with TV is iconic clothing label Levi's. Well known for its TV advertising spots, the brand had to be sure of the success of adding a mobile element to a campaign before changing its award-winning format. For the first time, Levi's decided to debut its latest ad via a WAP site, giving those who downloaded it a first look at the ad before it aired on TV. Helene Venge, head of digital marketing at Levi's Europe, says the purpose of the activity was primarily to extend the reach of the brand. 'WAP is a great way to reach a youth audience,' she says. 'We use mobile as a pull medium - not, as many advertisers do, to push. People don't use mobiles to receive ads; they use them to communicate with friends.' Venge says the data the brand collects is very useful, but to take mobile marketing to the next level you have to measure the interaction it creates. 'You can track and count the number of people who download an ad, but you should measure how it affected their perception of the brand. That is much harder.' Muller's spokeswoman argues that the use of mobile for a direct response campaigns can also create a deeper interaction between the brand and consumer, which can add value to the TV campaign. 'Mobile marketing gave us a way of getting consumers to interact with a promotional campaign in a way that was specifically linked to purchases of Mullerlight,' she says. 'It added depth, so (the tie-in) was not just confined to the placing of a brand logo next to that of a film property.' Jon Bains, chairman of interactive agency Lateral, believes the fact that brands are looking at mobile as a pull medium after years of SMS bombardment signals a change in the market. 'The big push of the internet was when it went from being text- to design-influenced. We are now going through a similar phase with mobile,' he says. 'Integrated campaigns should include mobile as a matter of course, but there are still very few properly integrated web campaigns - even fewer mobile.' Bains believes telecoms companies want marketers to use mobile as they want content to drive 3G growth. Although the first instances of this takeup may be gimmicks like ringtones, deeper integration will follow. 'Mobile should be the glue between outdoor, TV, radio and every other medium,' he says. Quality developments The development of mobile marketing as a brand advertising channel depends on technology bringing greater quality video and pictures to the latest generation of handsets. Peter Cowley, director of interactive media at Endemol, is in no doubt that mobile marketing will experience a massive increase in quality when smartphones are more widely adopted. 'The reason it hasn't happened yet is that there are questions regarding quality and the fact that there are only three million 3G handsets in the UK at the moment,' he says. 'Give it a year and watch that number rise. You will see lots of developments coming through this year in that area.' Flytxt's Gelenbe also thinks that brand advertising using mobile marketing, rather than just direct response, will be the next big battleground. 'Brand advertising is an exciting area. There is now technology that allows advertisers to capture the real estate of the phone. This will be the next big area for brands battling for the ownership of people's phone space,' he says. 'Only about 40% of phones can support rich content at the moment, but wait one more Christmas and it will become really viable for advertisers.' Media companies are now moving to take advantage of the public's use of mobile technology by creating services that bring advertisers and consumers closer together. Channel 4, for example, is the first broadcaster in the UK to offer its ad-vertisers mobile interactivity within their ads by giving them access to shortcodes to run with their linear TV ads. The broadcaster struck a deal with BT to add a mobile element to advertisers' campaigns. This is significant because it renders any TV ad interactive, not just those that are broadcast in homes with digital receivers. The service also enables advertisers to go beyond simple SMS texting by offering them the ability to stream video ads to people who text in. Merlin Inkley, head of airtime management at Channel 4, says the channel wants to find out how well mobile marketing works and was attracted by its mass appeal, especially in conjunction with TV advertising. 'Everyone has a phone and, although it is true that you could put a shortcode on a poster, we believe TV advertising is the most powerful medium there is, and this adds value and enhances the TV commercial.' The future development of the mobile marketing medium now depends on a number of key factors: the speed with which smartphones are adopted, how quickly new technology is brought to market, and whether the brands, agencies and the industry itself can agree on a common currency. Levi's Venge points out that it is key for brands to be smart about their use of the medium. She believes that, as mobile penetration increases and technology improves, the bar for content will continue to be raised. 'Regardless of whether you use the medium as part of a campaign or as a standalone mobile offering, you can offer exclusive material and create a notional community that wants to interact with the brand,' she adds. This interaction is what brands will seek, and what agencies and broadcasters will aim to deliver, as mobile marketing forms a bigger part of the UK's TV viewing habits. CASE STUDY - ORANGE Orange UK, which has more than 13.3m customers, has spent the past six years associating its brand with cinema through advertising and sponsorship. But, the mobile network operator wanted to go a step further and provide its customers with something of real value through the relationship. So, Orange Wednesdays, a three-year programme offering Orange customers a 'two tickets for the price of one' deal on any tickets at participating cinema nationwide, was devised. Call-to-action ads were created highlighting the promotion and prompting Orange customers to request a voucher by texting the keyword 'film' to the number 241, requesting it via WAP or using an IVR (interactive voice response) interface. Customers then receive a mobile voucher containing a unique code by SMS. Participating cinemas are equipped with redemption units at the ticket counter, which use GPRS technology to check the unique codes on every mobile voucher to ensure their validity in real time. Flytxt provides Orange and the cinema industry with weekly, monthly and quarterly reports on the number of mobile vouchers that are requested and redeemed, which cinemas the vouchers are redeemed at and the films that are being watched. The tie-up has proved that an audience can be migrated from a TV ad to a wireless environment. Follow-up texts on a weekly basis remind the user of the offer, which can be taken up each week, and ensure a continuing dialogue between the brand and the consumer. Users gain a positive brand experience from getting the two-for-one ticket deal, while both Orange and the participating cinemas receive data on their core audience and customers in return, thereby justifying their spend on the project. © Copyright Flytxt Ltd 2006. Unauthorized use of any content constitutes a material breach. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|