The U.S. Army is testing mobile as part of an integrated effort to target Hispanic soldiers for a G.I. Bill-equivalent program that helps with housing or starting a small business.

The campaign for the Army Advantage Fund includes radio, out-of-home media and online. The goal is to inform soldiers that they can receive up to $40,000 to buy a home or start a small business after completing their term with the Army.

"The Hispanic mobile initiative aims to facilitate awareness of the AAF content among those that were exposed to the offline advertising, particularly during times that they did not have access to the Internet," said Jose Villa, president of Sensis, the Los Angeles agency that handles the effort for the Army.

"The mobile initiative is also providing data on the effectiveness of radio versus out-of-home media and creative, as we are using different keywords to track mobile signups off each medium," he said. "The mobile program is also providing awareness of AAF, as each opt-in recipient receives additional text information on AAF each month."

Mobile is a key component of Hispanic consumers' daily life.

Research from comScore's M:Metrics unit claims that there were 26 million Hispanic mobile users nationwide last year. Half of them were under 34, split almost evenly between those ages 18-24 and 25-34. Another fifth were ages 35-44.

The same M:Metrics research showed that English-speaking Hispanics are among the active, engaged mobile content consumers: 70.9 percent consumed mobile content compared with the market average of 47.9 percent.

The Army decided to test the multichannel campaign in five markets that reflected the diversity of population nationwide: Albany, NY; Birmingham, AL; Cleveland, OH; San Antonio, TX; and Seattle.

All media drove traffic to the Army Advantage Fund's landing page at http://www.goarmy.com/aaf. Every channel, bar mobile, targeted the general market, Hispanics and African-Americans.

So, the Hispanic effort focused on San Antonio, a city with a high concentration of Hispanics.

The Hispanic mobile campaign execution was simple.

Bus shelter ads in English asked Hispanic soldiers to either visit goarmy.com/aaf or text FUTURE to the 87366 short code. Radio commercials had the same call to action in English and Spanish but using the ARMY keyword to track each medium's response.

Those who text in receive a return text with the fund's dedicated Web address and information regarding the program. Messages are sent once a month with the soldier retaining the right to opt out of such text messages.

Sensis partnered with Nokia's Enpocket to execute the SMS program. Enpocket's mobile campaign management and delivery system helped with the short code provisioning, setup and mechanics as well as keyword setup. It also helped with the monthly text alert schedule and 10,000 messages sent via SMS.

Text in tune with radio
The results so far show that radio has generated more mobile conversions than expected.

"Out-of-home has not worked very well," Mr. Villa said. "We thought it would generate the majority of the mobile activity. The logic was that someone sitting at a bus shelter waiting for a bus would be more likely to SMS in.

"The biggest issues we've identified were the out-of-home creative and the short code," he said. "The out-of-home creative includes a hidden and difficult mobile call to action in small print and people are not noticing it. The short code is not branded and therefore not memorable, which is probably hurting most in terms of radio.

"Surprisingly, radio is generating a lot more SMS activity than we expected. We have also seen success in taking the mobile program one-to-one and grassroots by recruiters. Some recruiters in San Antonio are offering the SMS as an opt-in program, which is extending the use of the program."

Mr. Villa said this program has yielded several takeaways.

First, have a branded short code. Second, make sure that the texting call to action is prominently displayed in other advertising vehicles. Finally, negotiate with the mobile partner to ensure liberal flight dates and extensions and integrations into other programs.

Mr. Villa said the Army mobile budgets for fiscal year 2009 are being rolled into the overall digital media budgets. This makes for easier mobile executions as part of a multichannel marketing effort.

Interestingly, there was no conscious decision to exclude the African-American market from the mobile program.

"In fact, we and the Army are looking at other opportunities to utilize mobile in the African-American market," Mr. Villa said.

"However, due to the high density of Hispanics in the San Antonio/South Texas area where we ran the program, it was an obvious market to test mobile as a tactic to reach Hispanics," he said.