Mobile agency Ansible picks CommerceTel for IVR work

By Mickey Alam Khan

May 23, 2008

Greg Farrell is vice president of marketing at CommerceTel

Interpublic Group of Companies Inc.’s Ansible agency has tapped CommerceTel to launch interactive mobile marketing campaigns for its clients.

CommerceTel is charged with managing and executing multiple phone participation campaigns including dial-in, IVR-enabled sweepstakes, contests, text and audio phone call alerts. The San Diego company will also handle delivery of personalized audio content.

“The whole premise here is to provide a platform for marketers to consolidate all the disparate elements of mobile marketing using IVR as the key front end,” said Greg Farrell, vice president of marketing at CommerceTel.

Founded in July, Ansible, New York, is an Interpublic joint venture with Velti, a mobile platforms and service provider. As part of the Futures Marketing Group, the agency offers mobile marketing campaign expertise to other agencies within the Interpublic family including McCann Erickson, Draftfcb and Lowe Worldwide.

CommerceTel is a provider of hosted dynamic interactive voice response and mobile content delivery services. Its technology links mobile and landline networks with a simple user interface.

In essence, CommerceTel’s CallFor system integrates voice response, text to speech and SMS technology to enable landline or mobile phone interaction.

So, the user dials a standard 10-digit number that is branded to a particular brand, marketer or campaign and follows audio instructions such as touch 1 to enter sweepstakes or contest, touch 2 to get information on your phone via text or audio or touch 3 to download a coupon.

CommerceTel clients include The Jerry Springer Show (see story), National Public Radio, Maxim and iLoop Mobile.

With this relationship, Ansible can now run any number and type of campaign as the agency would like, including the ability to change programs and menus at any time.

“We do feel that with IVR as the front end, you can have a more interactive discussion with the end user,” Mr. Farrell said.