If what you want to do is have a web presence go mobile, here’s who’s doing it well:
The first five major sites to cross the threshold include Accuweather, ESPN, Weather Channel, Yahoo Weather, and G-Mail. Major League Baseball (wap.mlb.com), Facebook (m.facebook.com) and YELP Mobile (mobile.yelp.com) are great examples of successful platform migration with huge usage.
Okay, but how about advertising?
WAP opens up a huge range of advertising opportunities, from banner ads to branded content to mobisodes to Bluecasting. It’s a brave new world for those advertisers wanting to engage consumers where they live, walk, work and play. Consider these examples:
Brand Campaigns: Coca-cola Happiness Factory
In France in 2006, Coca-Cola decided to precede the launch of the mainstream advertising campaign with a mobile campaign, building a dedicated web and WAP site from which mobile users could download a video clip of the ad. The site also offered other mobile content based on the ad, including wallpaper and a dedicated game. The three-week prelaunch mobile campaign attracted about 60,000 downloads.Free for the watching: Virgin Mobile’s Sugar Mama campaign
Virgin gave away airtime for time spent watching ads online – this was the first such campaign by an operator in North America. Consumers can watch ads from prominent brands like Microsoft, P&G, Apple, Pepsi, Sony, Nintendo and others. In the first year, an average of 1,000 new customers signed on to participate each day, earning over 9 million minutes of free airtime.Mobisodes
Mobisodes are broadcast television episodes written and specifically filmed for viewing on a mobile telephone screen and usually of short duration (from one to three minutes). They are short video snacks full of bright colors and built for small image screens. They are often written by different people from those who create the regular TV version, and they have mobile product placements as part of the video – AND THEY OFFER CONSUMERS SOMETHING OF VALUE, OF INTEREST, AND SOMETHING THEY WOULDN’T GET ANY TOHER WAY. Viral forwarding is a natural of this media. Media has become social currency. If it is worth anything, it is worth sending on.
- Toyota: In 2006, the launch of the Yaris was supported by a mobisode of the show Prison Break. Toyota and Fox cut an extensive deal for Toyota to sponsor and be featured in the series. Each 2-minute episode began with a 10-second commercial for the Yaris.
- MasterCard: Later in 2006, MasterCard did mobisodes with Bones: Skeleton Crew including product placements and sponsorships.
Mobile Pre-Rolls
As in the online space, these are short ads preceding other media. But to avoid becoming the new spam, some simple guidelines may increase effectiveness. Timing could be limited to 5 or 10 seconds. Exposure frequency could be limited, perhaps one pre-roll for every third or fourth mobile video a user sees. 2-3 second tags “brought to you by” in advance of videos and combined with full-length ad units later on.
The Idle Screen
The idle screen (or home screen or phone top) has been media-blind till now. But the Japanese market is showing the way. Consumers can download their chosen ‘brand skin’ and radically alter their user interface, for example, going from a BMW branded UI to a Barbie branded UI. Not only the brand changes, but entire functionality from keys to applications can also be changed by the brand. These approaches are turning push-based interruption approaches into engagement models.
Zumobi – a new and free mobile widget application that lets consumers navigate entertainment and information content simply and is fun to use. The application is FREE, and each tile has some advertisements interlaced with the content, based on the user’s profile and tile history. These ads are downloaded in advance, and since users get value out of the experience, they don’t mind ads. And Zumobi will soon be preloaded on a number of Windows Mobile smartphones.
Load-time Interstitials
Interstitials are ads that play during the dead time of WAP page loads or application downloads. Or they can be in the footers of every SMS message, as is the case in India and China today. From a consumer perspective, watching an ad inserted during a WAP page load or a mobile application start-up is almost unobtrusive. No worse than watching a progress bar move ever so slowly.
AdMob
Founded in 2006, AdMob allows advertisers to reach their customers on the mobile Web and publishers to increase the value of their mobile sites. Using AdMob, Coca- Coca-Cola launched a new click-to-video mobile campaign. Ads deliver mobile web browsers to a Coca-Cola landing page where they can view a "Bottle Films" short. "Bottle Films" shorts are consumer-created videos that personally interpret "The Coke Side of Life."
Music-Via-Mobile
Sprite China launched a music-via-mobile initiative that included joint promotion with McDonald’s. The “Music in Every Sprite Bottle” campaign offered consumers free music content and other virtual products via the Sprite WAP site. Pin codes printed on the underside of Sprite bottle caps can be keyed into the WAP site to allow consumers access to MP3s, ring tones, photos of celebrities, entertainment news, blogs, forums, and updates on the Sprite My Show talent show.
Bluecasting
With Bluetooth advertising, instead of the user noticing the ad, the ad notices the user, encouraging more interaction with branded content. CBS used a billboard campaign in Grand Central Terminal train station in New York to promote several new shows in their fall lineup: "Shark," "Smith," "Jericho" and "The Class" -- and their top hit "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" as well. Passers-by are asked to opt-in as they walk past the billboard to download video trailers for the programs during their daily commutes. A Bluetooth billboard also made an appearance recently in Toronto subways as part of a promotion for the Lord of the Rings musical offering consumers the chance to download ringtones of tunes from the show.QR Code advertising
Again, Japan is leading the way here with technology still to hit North America. Printed QR codes provide a fast way to find and connect to an internet address with instant connectivity, wherever you are. The QR codes – in a newspaper or on a billboard -- are snapped with a cell phone camera equipped with a QR reader (more than 30 million mobile phone users in Japan already have phones with this as a standard feature). The reader decodes the information and automatically links the user to a mobile-site. Once at the site, customers register and give permission to be sent promotional messages, information, games and quizzes, which can be "pushed" out to them.- Northwest Airlines: NWA was already experimenting with using QR codes on small print ads. They then decided to try it on outdoor. Could a giant QR code be recognized by phone software? What if the code was the size of a billboard and placed on the outside of a building, or on large subway boards? Headlines on the mammoth QR code billboards enticed consumers to engage in an interactive "Guess the name of the city" quiz written in the style of Japanese senryu poems. The answers are all cities in the U.S. and Asia that NWA flies to, America being the biggest market for Japanese travelers. Prizes included e-coupons that count toward discounted fares and WorldPerks Bonus Miles.
Branded entertainment: Mobile advergames
Games are golden apps in the mobile universe, as subscribers use them in huge numbers during down-time while commuting, waiting in doctor’s offices, etc.
- DHL: DHL issued completely branded games and content by offering users the chance to download the Tetris-like game “Stack-it”. Users shift DHL labeled boxes to fill empty spaces. This was part of DHL’s “Customer Service Is Back In Shipping” branding campaign.
- Mountain Dew: commissioned a mobile game based on the Willy the Hillbilly character that appeared in its 1950s adverts. However, it's not a downloadable game in the traditional sense. Instead, it's a branded widget that's part of the Zumobi platform for smartphones.
Suzuki: Suzuki came out with its Motocross Challenge, which places players at the center of a championship motocross race featuring jumps, obstacles, and bonus points for aerial stunts.
Modiv Media: Talking to grocery store customers
Using Modiv Media, as shoppers walk through the aisles, they receive targeted offers and advertisements in real time based on their past, present and anticipated buying choices. How? Shoppers scan or swipe their loyalty card at the self-service kiosk that includes a large display rack with handheld scanners. Alternatively, Modiv also provides consumers with opt-in to a mobile promotions program by submitting their mobile phone number via text message, email or web site to receive highly relevant messages from the brand marketer or retailer. The messages are delivered via SMS, MMS or WAP, depending on the channel campaign objectives and customer preferences.
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