LOS ANGELES ? A former Target executive at the Mobile Marketing Forum 2011 said the company saw 250,000 consumer engagements when it ran a mobile circular campaign for the back-to-school season.

During the ?Target Corp. and Microsoft Advertising Reimagine Retail Marketing: Dynamic Mobile Circulars and the Future of Mobile Advertising? session executives discussed how mobile has moved beyond the banner as advertisers are moving towards richer, more interactive formats and experiences. The session addressed how Target partnered with Microsoft Mobile Advertising and Phluant Mobile to drive in-store traffic and build consumer engagement.

?Our challenge was to find and test innovative ways to reach core customers with promotions and deals we have running for the back-to-school season,? said Barbara Hagen, former head of marketing at Target Corp.

?We wanted to do more than reach people,? she said. ?We wanted to drive traffic to the store and the way that we were going to do that was find a medium that we can leverage and complement with our weekly ad.

?Secondly, I needed to find partners and then third we needed to build an interactive engaging experience that would engage consumers and have then coming back.?

Mobile target
According to Ms. Hagen, early on, mobile was top of mind for Target.

?We were all familiar with mobile and how good it was to drive in-store traffic,? Ms. Hagen said. ?When I think about my target audience at Target, they always have their smartphone with them.?

Target worked with Microsoft Mobile Advertising and Phluant Mobile on the Dynamo? short for dynamic mobile circular ? mobile campaign.

The mobile campaign targeted consumers in various cities. Different consumers were served different ads.

For example, a busy dad in Seattle was served an ad for an Xbox while a busy mom in Illinois was served an ad for diapers.

When consumers tapped on the ad, they saw different products featured in the mobile circular and were able to use the device?s GPS functionality to find the nearest store to buy that product.

Additionally, users were able to download the Target app within the ad to further interact with the brand.

?When I think about Target?s target audience, they always have their smartphone on them,? Ms. Hagen said. ?Whether it?s to get price information and to browse deals and offers.

?The reality is, if you have a campaign and it doesn?t perform then it?s not going to resonate well,? she said.

Results
In addition to the 250,000 consumer engagements, Target saw that within those engagements the average person was swiping 5.3 times.

The total engagement rate was 18.8 percent.

?We felt good about our test and learn,? Ms. Hagen said.  ?Look at the time consumers spend on the ad ? they spent 40 seconds on the ad on average.

?When we dug deeper, almost a quarter ? about 60,000 consumers ? were spending over a minute with our content,? she said.

?Additionally, more than 22 percent signed up to receive SMS deals to their phone for later in-store redemption.?

According to Mario Ribera, director of U.S. product management at Microsoft Advertising, the Target campaign started and ended with consumers.

?We helped Target find the right audience across the most popular smartphone platforms such as Apple, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone. 

Final Take
Rimma Kats is staff reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York