At Ad:Tech, Cielo President dispels misconception about the mobile web
2007-08-01 08:15
August 1, 2007, Chicago – For consumer brands seeking to
utilize the mobile web, the answer has little to do with getting mobile
consumers to browse their websites, explained Cielo Group President
Dean Macri, speaking at Ad:Tech Chicago. Instead, brands and their
agencies should focus on “activating” traditional ad media through
mobile campaigns and applications with measurable calls to action.
“Mobile
marketing is not about browsing websites,” Macri said. “Interactive
agencies don’t sell browsing. They sell interactive campaigns linked
directly to new media. The same concept holds true for mobile. Mobile
is about injecting traditional ad media with a direct-response, driving
consumers to a micro site or deep link with a call to action on their
cell phones.”
In doing so, companies and
their agencies can track the impact of traditional media. A direct
response, initiated from a mobile phone, allows a brand to measure
results, capture profile information, segment campaigns, and produce
effective ROI.
“The challenge for brands is
to utilize the ultimate direct-response mechanism in the pockets of
consumers,” Macri said. He and Cielo client Bank of America spoke on a
panel entitled: “Building Relationships with Your Customers Through Mobile”.
Macri
urged the audience to integrate mobile within their traditional media
buys to extend the value of advertising budgets, activating typically
static ads, including print, broadcast, and out-of-home.
Manoj Jasra of Web Analytics World,
covering the session, described a Cielo mobile initiative for BMW that
places short codes – five-digit phone numbers – in signage at 14 major
airports across the country. A traveler who taps in the short code and
a key word receives a link to a mobile application promoting BMW’s new
convertible.
The application includes BMW
video (or a photo gallery for phones lacking video capability) and a
button to schedule a test drive at a local dealer. From key words,
Cielo is able to measure the effectiveness of each sign within each
airport.
The keys to discovery
The
challenge in the mobile web is discovery – the ability for consumers to
find what they want on their phones. “Advertisers hold the keys to
discovery,” Macri noted. He suggested that advertisers place short
codes or EZ Codes (2D bar codes captured by a cell-phone’s camera) in
out-of-home advertising. Short codes allow digital agencies to mask
detailed URLs that contain campaign-specific segmentation and tracking
parameters.
When a company places a mobile
short code link in traditional media, it spares consumers from keying
in long URLs to deep links, encouraging mobile users to act on the spot.
“If
you place just your top-level URL in an ad, what are the chances people
remember or have the time to look it up online when they get home?”
Macri asked. “And if they do have the time, will they even recall the
URL? Marketing success depends on capturing that relationship right
then and there, when consumers experience maximum emotional response to
the ad.”
Even if the consumer were to enter
a website address on his or her cell phone, a top-level URL does not
direct the consumer to a landing page with a call to action tied to an
advertisement, Macri noted. Furthermore, URLs lack measurement of
targeted ads. “Using mobile to activate and measure traditional media
provides our clients with a higher ROI for their investment,” Macri
said.
Macri provided anther case example:
Cielo added value to Anheuser-Busch’s Super Bowl ad spend by streaming
beer commercials to cell phones. Consumers voted on their favorite
commercials, which they could forward to friends. Anheuser-Busch’s
mobile campaign, discovered through traditional broadcast media, “is
the long tail of A-B’s branded content. Commercials are viewed and
shared long after the game itself, allowing A-B to continue its
interactive dialog with each mobile consumer.
In
2006, US advertisers spent more than $270 billion on traditional media.
This amount provides advertisers with a powerful means to reach mobile
consumers – more than any other form of mobile discovery. By activating
traditional media, brands will be able to reach huge numbers of mobile
“eyeballs.” For example, a company’s reach through traditional media
will far surpass impressions on mobile banner ads, Macri noted. Mobile
banner-ad impressions have limited inventory on carriers’ decks and are
viewed by relatively small numbers of visitors to those mobile portals.
Nevertheless, mobile banner ads have proven
to be an effective discovery mechanism. Bank of America, for example,
placed banner ads on Verizon’s deck to link consumers to a Cielo-built
mobile application for home loans, obtaining click-through rates
exceeding expectations.
Mobile success factors
Macri
said the three most important elements in implementing a brand’s mobile
presence are discovery of the application, adoption (using social media
to increase frequency of use) and reach (being able, technologically,
to detect handset capabilities and provide a mobile experience tailored
across all types of handsets. View Cielo’s Ad:Tech presentation. For more information visit: www.cielomobile.com.
About Cielo Group
Cielo
helps its clients move beyond rudimentary text-message promotion
campaigns with “advanced” WAP sites and downloadable, handset-resident
applications that:
- Enable brands to establish a direct, interactive and ongoing connection with mobile consumers.
- Engage consumers through content and community features in which consumers willingly participate.
- Effectively measure traditional media using the ultimate response mechanism in every consumer’s pocket.
Cielo
started in 2004 as the first vendor to stream mobile video (within
handset-resident applications it built for Major League Baseball, the
NBA and Nokia).
