Bloomberg recently ran a mobile advertising campaign to promote the revamp of its flagship iPad application that gave users a taste for the app?s content before downloading it.

The mobile ads ran for six weeks in December and January. The company partnered with InMobi on the campaign.

?Our flagship iPad app launched in April 2010, so we were one of the first apps in the App Store, and what we?ve found exciting with the relaunch is that it is the first of its kind to personalize content that is relevant to users,? said Dhanusha Sivajee, head of marketing for mobile at Bloomberg, New York.

?From a marketing standpoint, we got to develop a mobile ad campaign that captures the richness of the products,? she said. 

?We wanted to move away from an advertising message in a banner ad, and we thought that rich media was the best way to give people a sampling of the product.?

Mobile news
Bloomberg?s goal behind the mobile ad campaign was to let users dig into the publisher?s content from the actual ads by using a combination of banner ads and expandable rich media formats.

The expandable rich media units let consumers view market data with a live stock ticker that pulled in Bloomberg content. When clicked on, the ads let consumers get more information about a company, including historical data, highs, lows and headlines.

Another banner ad included a call-to-action for consumers to download the Bloomberg app.

The ads were placed on mobile sites and apps such as The Drudge Report and Accuweather and targeted consumers by channels.

The company also used the mobile ad to reach out to different audiences ? such as sports ? that may not already be familiar with Bloomberg?s content.

The engagement rate inside the ad unit was 14.49 percent.

When it comes to the campaign's 37 percent install rate, other mobile ad campaigns for verticals such as games, travel and finance typically deliver lower install rates that average less than ten percent, per Bloomberg.

The key to this campaign?s success was giving users a chance to interact with content before pushing users to download the app.

?The goal overall was being able to generate awareness by using technology in a creative way,? Ms. Sivajee said.

Mobile revamp
The campaign was only used in the United States, but given Bloomberg?s global footprint, the company is looking to roll out similar mobile advertising campaigns in other areas in the future.

The ad campaign supports Bloomberg?s major iPad app redesign in November.

The app revamp focused on news personalization and faster access to news for users (see story).

When Apple?s iPad launched in 2010, publishers were eager to show off their content on a bigger canvas than smartphones.

However as tablet adoption has grown over the past few years, consumers expect to be able to do more than just browse over headlines from an iPad app, which is why customization and personalization plays such a big role for publishers.

?We have a lot of data that shows that consumers are consuming more content on this app,? Ms. Sivajee said.

?The people that we are bringing in are digging deeper ? we have a rich experience and an intuitive design that lets users take the app in whatever direction they like,? she said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York