When you’re hungry…

Is there anybody who has never thought: where could I eat something? Apparently everybody sometimes is struck by a big hunger. People responsible for marketing in American Burger King have decided to take advantage of this human indulgence and set up a mobile application which provides some very useful information:

• Localization of all restaurants;
• Information on nutritive values (as well as information for allergy sufferers);
• Nice content for downloading on mobile phones (images, games) – so that users could personalize their mobiles with themes connected with the mark.

And both the wolves have eaten much and the sheep have not been touched! The consumers have a practical tool, and the people from BK marketing are satisfied because interaction with the mark can now exist no matter where the consumer is.

This campaign was integrated with other interactive activities (films and games on WWW), and traditional promotion (press advertising, publications etc.) During sport and lifestyle events Burger King exposed its banners inducing to download the application.

The most popular element of the application was a localization service. The number of visits at Burger King’s has considerably increased.

Bon appetite! Wherever you are.

MSNBC

The MSNBC channel which is very appreciated for its internet services has decided to go on further and introduced new multimedia services. Their portal has been especially transformed so as it could be read in mobile phones. Now you can access selected materials through wireless devices – We want to optimize our customers’ experiences with digital materials – as they quoted n the press. This mobile channel appeared to be a very good tool. Thanks to the special platform allowing advertisements to be included, the service is free for users.

Since April 2006 materials can be downloaded directly to mobile phone memory, so it can be read any time, without connecting to the net. Before the change it functioned as a WAP site.

Thanks to the application the users can:

• Read news from the most popular categories (the list is updated on-line);
• Watch slideshows (pictures of the week, images of the stars and so on);
• Send interesting contents to friends using SMS or mail;
• Store selected materials for future reading;

The idea was shortly described in Washington Post: It’s a turning point for the branch. The big interest of the service has caused better results for advertisers. Statistically every user visited the service 20 times a month and the number of entering the advertised sites increased more than twice.

Never pick up the phone

In central Boston random selected people get unexpectedly crazy. They become aggressive and attack others. The craziness is quickly spreading on American cities. The mysterious cause of the insanity is … a cell phone, actually a strange ‘pulse’ emitted by phones. This is a short summary of last novel by Stephen King ‘Cell’. Critics do not hesitate to say: “it is a classic horror aimed in modern civilization”. The rule in this twisted world is one – if  you want to save your life do not pick up the phone.

Paradoxically promotion of the novel was based on cell phones marketing. According to the sell results it was a very good strategy.

First stage of the campaign was to win some users. Advertising banners and mail footers contained links to websites with information about the premiere and invited to VIP Mobile Club. Members of the club could take part in some easy contests, get some personalized messages just from the author or win special prizes (eg. books with King’s autograph).

Equally important aim of the project was getting new readers – those who are not familiar with King’s writings. As you can imagine, the creators of the project decided to use ‘viral’ campaign. They used special application which sent special, mysterious signals. Those who got such a message could share it with their friends and relatives. Of course it was not just a horror game – every SMS contained information about possibility of reservation the book in internet bookstore. This kind of transmission allowed to radically widen the range of the promotion.

Next element of the campaign was quite obvious – sending suitable, especially projected ring tones and wallpapers for cell phones.

Effectiveness of the campaign was then rated according to 3 criteria: number of users, number of people taking part in the game and – of course – level of sale of the novel. Apparently there was thousands of users every day and of course it had big impact of the sale: the novel set a record of ordered copies. The project was widely commented in the press (even in noble Wall Street Journal) – what is, of course, priceless.

We have just one doubt – we are not sure whether after reading ‘Cell’ anybody will ever download anything on the cell phone again.

Kiss my SMS…

American division of cosmetic company Neutrogena organized an original campaign of a new product last year – lip-gloss Moisture Shine Lip Soothers, Ipsh! It was aimed for the brand enthusiasts as well as new clients.

The action called SMOOCHES was a ‘viral’ project and was based on all kinds of kisses and smooches Mysterious messages were sent by a ‘secret admirers’. The content of the messages were digital ‘kisses’. Women (who were the main target) could then send the message on, to their close or important persons (without revealing themselves).

The realization of the project started on web site. There was a special set of ‘kisses’, in different colors, and with different, hidden meaning (for example friendly kiss, rock star kiss or veery hot ones). The next step was to choose text of the message and the surprise was ready to send.

It was a very simple and easy operated action, which gave very good and satisfying results:

• More than 22000 kisses sent
• 65% of smooches was sent by cell phones (and the rest through e-mails)
• 20% of received smooches was sent on to others (correct idea of ‘viral’ campaign)

Moreover this action showed that even a low-cost campaign gives good results, all the more since simple messages can be operated by practically everybody.

What children want?

A consulting company Online Testing eXchange in cooperation with community platform eCrush has made a research about most attractive, according to the youth and children, applications and possibilities of cell phones. 750 teenagers aged 13-17, took part in the research. They had to answer some questions, among others:

• What do you feel about having a cell phone?
• What profits does it give to you?
• What phone functions do you use most often?
• What it the most important in your phone?

Because of the fact that popularity of cell phones as a medium to watch movies and listen to music has strongly increased, there was two questions added:

• What kind of movies do you watch on you phone?
• What functions do you use more rarely since you can watch movies?

From the marketing point of view the most interesting declarations concern what materials young people download on their phones most often.

The end of traditional advertising

IBM Institute for Business Value has published a report on advertising market till 2010. The title itself is significant: The end of advertising as we know it. It is not actually surprising. But let’s see some details.

The key issue for development in the branch is using interactive formats – state authors. Traditional marketing channels (advertising banners, TV commercials) have a low growth potential, which is assessed at a few percent. At the same time the average year growth of interactive formats (internet, mobile advertising, interactive TV or advergaming) is assessed at over 20%. The only ‘traditional’ marketing tool remains a product placement.

The report has been created according to interviews with consumers (2400) and experts (80). Most of the experts predicts significant transfer of planned outlays to mobile marketing, IPTV (Internet Protocol Television), VOD (Video On Demand) and internet video. They predict those who stay in ‘traditional’ marketing channels will be soon out of the game.

The authors point out that those who contact with clients through the Internet or mobile telephony are in better position for acquiring data about their clients. Such companies can create precise profiled client databases and then exactly match the content to send; hence the effectiveness of the campaign can be much improved.

The report describes also social and cultural changes – replacing ‘consumer’ with ‘prosumer’ (is a hybrid created from words ‘consumer’ and ‘producer’) and necessity of detailed segmentation of target group and personalization of offers.

Rabbit fever…

London agency Fix Marketing organized a mobile campaign of a British comedy called Rabbit Fever last year. The title rabbit is a kind of mascot but with one reservation – it’s a model of …. vibrator. The Rabbit is the most selling and the most satisfying vibrator all over the world. There are even associations of Anonym Rabbits, where women try to cope with unusual addiction.

The goal of the campaign was to promote the film, increase the web traffic and of course visits in cinemas. The producers wanted the advertisement to become maximally established in public consciousness. That’s why they decided to use an interactive element. On printed posters there was a prompt: Send SMS with RABBIT to number…. As a reply clients got a link for WAP site, with detailed information on film (trailers, cinema addresses, schedule, wallpapers and of course a ticket-winning contest). Campaign lasted for 3 weeks, and there was only about 20 playbills in cinemas.

The effects confirm weakness of the human nature – curiosity always wins . With only 20 playbills 1200 people sent SMS. They downloaded over 2200 files (wallpapers, movies). Almost 90% took part in the contest. About 67 % of those who reacted to the campaign went to see the movie. Of course the level of ticket sale was satisfying.

The Snow is Snowing

Because of a big blizzard during one of winter weekends some of American airports were stuck. Passengers had to spent hours waiting for their planes. One of big American companies noticed that at this time the number of visits on their WAP site increased a lot.

Such situation was confirmed by some other companies as well – WAP sites become more popular than WWW sites at times of blizzards.

According to previous statistics they found that it was not just a coincidence. During previous blizzards the results were the same! So, the conclusion is that people who get bored on closed airports much often use mobile phones to surf the net and visit WAP sites. What can we do about it? Wait for the blizzard and then place the information we want to be widespread on a WAP site…

Mobile literature

Apparently novels written especially for distribution on mobile phones have become very popular in Japan. In this unconventional way Japanese could read even a few best-sellers. So called shosetsu consist of short paragraphs (160 characters, which is exactly as much as can be seen on a single screen). It’s no use wasting the space for landscape descriptions so there are mostly dialogs in shosetsu. If a character is in a deep thought for a while it is represented by a space sign. Most of the authors is before 30…

Oyayubi zoku (jap. thumb-using tribe…) get successive parts of the books in the tube or during school breaks. The most persistent users are school girls and young women.

The novels which are especially eagerly read are then published in traditional, paper version. The most popular Koizora (Heaven of Love) has been printed in huge 1.3 mln edition after it has been downloaded by 10 mln mobile readers. Eventually it has become been even screened.

It’s an interesting idea for promotion books. We can imagine a promotion of a premiere novel by sending some fragments directly on your mobiles. Or – the author writes the first chapter, and the readers will decide whether to continue writing or not… Or, on the other hand, maybe the readers could make the ending?

SMS for alergy

Novartis – pharmacology company from Great Britain, has set up a mobile application for allergics called Pollen-Count Alert. Registered patietns get short messages on their mobile phones every day (every working-day at 7 a.m., during weekend at 10 a.m.). The messages contain information about pollen count but the communicates are personalized – every registered patient fills in a form and then gets adequate informations about his specific allergic pollens. The company sends also advices how to decrease the distress.

The aim of the action is to help with the marketing campaign for spray and nasal drops against hay-fever. The program was free of charge for the first month, for first 5000 users. Then those who wanted to get the messages had to paid 1 £ for every 10 SMS. The new application was promoted in pharmacology press, at chemist’s shops and on public transports tickets. The company used existing client database as well. The efect of the campaign was very satisfacotry – 61 % of users could easily point the sponsor and 71 % of them marked the application as ‘4’ or ‘5’ (in 5-degree scale).