Global advertising agency McCann Erickson has teamed up with 3Cinteractive to launch a mobile marketing campaign for the US Army. The campaign, which targets high school and college students, will help the Army identify potential recruits and converse with those interested in serving the Army. The mobile program will provide information on their 40k scholarship, skills and training, and other benefits of joining the Army.
Students will see the call to action in their school newspapers prompting them to text a keyword to be entered for the chance to win a Nintendo Wii and receive information about the benefits of joining the Army. In order to be entered in the contest, they will be required to respond via SMS with their name and birth date. To help the ARMY compile a list of interested people, 3Ci will post the information received from the text messages to the Army’s recruitment database.
“For the US Army’s target demographic, there is no better way to create a conversation than by using SMS,” said Chris Field. “We feel that this mobile campaign will increase the effectiveness of the Army’s advertising strategy and will ultimately generate an interest in a career in the US Army.”
- Karly
In my earlier post: 4 Mobile Ad Stats that will make you Think I discussed 4 key statistics that represent the success of SMS as an advertising medium. To support this article, I thought it would be important to mention two more key findings from the Limbo report:
5. In 3 Months the number of recalled advertisements rose from 78 million to 82 million.
Limbo reports that the majority of growth occurred among women and those aged 25-34.
This is a significant statistic as the 25-34 year-old demographic has been notably difficult to reach for marketers. If mobile subscribers are able to recall seeing advertisements, it is also critical that they remember the brand.
6. 41% of those who remembered mobile advertising could recall at least one brand.
In total, this is a 20 percent increase from December 2007. Advertising is only as affective as the consumers ability to recall the brand. Although, women are the growing demographic, men are 10 percent more likely to recall the brand that was advertised. What is more significant is that the 25-34 age-group performed the highest. Marketers have tried to reach this demographic using the social networking world with little success.
One striking note in the report were the types of brands that were recalled the most. Mobile operators and mobile content providers were at the top of the list with a sprinkle of bigger brands (ESPN, AOL, Nike, Coca-Cola, etc.) in the long tail.
This is more a reflection of the volume of marketing traffic that is pushed by mobile content providers. Major brands have yet to embrace mobile as a 24/7 campaign tool, which hinders the exposure to consumers. As brands begin to incorporate mobile into their sponsored content campaigns or their own mobile campaigns, their brand recognition will increase.
- Ainsworth
I spent the weekend with several very successful franchisees in our area, and of course, they commented on my heavy use of text messaging. As you could imagine, the conversation veered into mobile being such a youth-oriented technology that “doesn’t make sense.” As the conversation developed I couldn’t help but think of the recent Limbo Mobile Advertising report, that addressed this misconception. Here I was, spending a lovely Memorial Day weekend in the Florida Keys at one of their many, large, resort-like homes; I needed a tactful opportunity to let them know they were misled. Alas, the opportunity arose, when the champion of the bunch needed to know more: “So, what is it that you prefer about text messaging?”
My explanation covered a few key areas: First, text messaging is asynchronous so I can communicate with a friend in the background without disturbing other activities or the people around me. Second, text messaging gets my attention but doesn’t require my attention. In other words, I’m inclined enough to check it and respond, but not to the point where I’m annoyed. For a busy businessman, that explanation made sense, and I now had a segue into a few interesting stats about text messaging.
I started out with a bit of the basics - special thanks to Limbo, GFK, and NOP for pulling together this survey.
1. Over 50% of the 255 million mobile phone owners use SMS
This alone shows how widely adopted the SMS medium is. This means, that an audience of ~130 million users has near-constant access (~24/7) and familiarity with this medium. Even better, mobile marketers have the ability to touch these users within minutes, just enough to generate attention, without requiring it. It’s intrusive, but not annoying. So what? If 82 percent of those under 24 use SMS, what does that mean for marketers interested in the older demographics?
2. 50% of SMS users are 35 or over
For 25 or over, that number turns to 75%. This is an astounding figure, as these demographics have purchasing power that can be activated with targeted messages. When I mentioned this to the inquisitor, it became a bit more clear. Those consumers with the most purchasing power are often the most distracted and hardest to activate. Knowing that a call-to-action can be delivered and consumed at a precise moment is previously unheard of. His franchises are focused on chain restaurants so we spoke at length about his current marketing campaigns. Then I asked, “When a businessman gets up from his desk for lunch and asks the inevitable, ‘Where are we going,’ what is he more likely to recall: your competitor’s local advertisement during halftime of the game last night, or the mobile coupon you just delivered to his phone?”
Continue reading ‘4 Mobile Ad Stats that Will Make You Think’
The numerous options in mobile marketing have confused marketing offices. From native handset applications to MMS and SMS, each technology has its ups and downs.
Because they occur on the handset and can leverage other applications or hardware features (e.g. GPS), native applications offer the most flexibility for user interaction. But, native applications, are subject to one-time installs, and users rarely remember to update their software.
The next bet for content delivery is MMS, and while that is a great medium, the technology isn’t ubiquitous across the major carriers. SMS, the plain text sibling of MMS, is ubiquitous but many marketers shy away because of the misconception that SMS lacks the full package.
Digging a bit further, marketers will jump back to WAP only to find that it too struggles to provide ubiquitous experience end-users. This is partially a result of the lack of standardized browsers, and that Verizon Wireless blocks WAP content downloads to their handsets.
So, after all this research, somehow, handset applications come away with the biggest appeal. They’re fast, they leverage the handset’s features, and they can handle all the fun content without battling a messaging platform. Which leaves me asking… how good was this research?! Yes, a handset application can do all that and the end-users – who actually download it - would love it, but why eliminate such a large audience with all the red tape?
Don’t get me wrong, mobile applications are cool - I had a few before I jumped to the iPhone – but the mobile phone is about speed and convenience. The traditional method of finding and downloading an application has too many hurdles – the iPhone AppStore will change this.
Continue reading ‘Looking to Go Mobile? Start with SMS.’
I’ve had this sitting on a burner for a rainy day and Victor’s post on Mobile Marketing Watch was enough to bring it to the surface:
The prognosis on WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) hasn’t changed since the turn of the century. WAP technology had a premature introduction to the mobile phone as it came before the infrastructure and consumer interest supported it. The early complaints of WAP were closely related to those of the early internet, which left hope for WAP developers but, unlike the internet, WAP had to compete with a more complete sibling: the internet. In my mind, 7 key things pile in the barrel of WAP’s struggle:
7. Not Supported by All Major Carriers
WAP’s initial lax in the content delivery space was relieved by the WAP push. A WAP push allows content providers to deliver content to a mobile device using a WAP browser connection. In addition, the WAP push is a favorable alternative to MMS, a technology that is/was suffering from a lack of universal standards across the major carriers. But the major carriers have their own business to protect, so off-deck content delivery through WAP is not supported by all of the major carriers. This alone eliminates at least 30% of the mobile market. Imagine having a billboard that 1/3 of the motorists couldn’t read.
6. MMS is Next
Because MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) is not a ubiquitous mobile offering, mobile ASPs have relied heavily on WAP to deliver their content. Since the carriers have agreed to MMS interoperability, that is going to change. MMS allows sending and receiving of graphics, video, and audio clips - most of the information sent through a WAP push. There is very little that needs to be changed for WAP interoperability, instead it is limited by the carriers’ business decisions to block off-deck WAP delivery. MMS interoperability is a step up from the limits of WAP, by allowing users to be billed directly through SMS without the additional pain of a WAP download. There is potential for one bill, one technology, interoperable delivery.
5. Billed by Data Usage
Consumers are already wary of the premium paid for direct mobile content such as ringtones. Most of the paid ringtone services are charging a minimum of $0.99 p/ ringtone, which is the price of a full mp3 from iTunes. Consumers are still downloading ringtones despite the premium charge, however, many consumers are shocked to see WAP data charges on top of their premium sms charge. This will leave many consumers frustrated until unlimited data plans become more of the norm. People dislike being billed twice for the same content.
Continue reading ‘7 Reasons WAP is Flawed’