Starbucks is running a mobile advertising campaign to increase downloads of its mobile applications.

The food and beverage retailer is running ads within the Flixster iPhone app. The ads promote the company?s commerce-enabled iPhone app.

"Several millions of consumers, every weekend, are using the Flixster app because they are planning a movies outing," said James Smith, chief revenue officer at Flixster, New York

"They will be going to the theater, shopping, eating and most theaters are in areas with malls around retail restaurants such as Starbucks are located," he said.

"A coffee before or after any of the above makes a lot of sense."

Drink up
The Starbucks banner ad reads ?Pay faster, sip slower? and runs along the top of the Flixster app.

When consumer tap on the banner ad, they are redirected to a mobile optimized page with a picture of the Starbucks mobile payments app for iPhone.

The ads also mention how the Starbucks app is available for Android devices.

Here is the Starbucks ad running in Flixster

Consumers can then click on the ad to be redirected to Apple?s App Store and download the app.

The ads are meant to show how quick and easy paying for Starbucks products is via the app.

Mobile java
Starbucks? mobile ads are the retailer?s latest push to make mobile a prominent part of its strategy.

Recently the company ran another series of mobile ads to promote a line of cool summer drinks (see story).

Mobile payments are a hot topic and Starbucks recently received a bit of competition with coffee chain Peet?s Coffee & Tea latching on to Google Wallet (see story).

By using a click-to-download function, Starbucks is able to brand's message across with a call-to-action for consumers.

"There is a thought process on ads that sometimes less is more," said Steve Timpson, chief operating officer of Siteminis, Atlanta.

Mr. Timpson is not affiliated with Starbucks or Flixster. He commented based on his expertise on the subject.

"It is important to get the brand out there as fast as possible with a quick call-to-action," he said.

"Starbucks' simple tagline is also smart because it gives a quick value proposition."

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York