Cub Cadet recently ran a mobile advertising campaign which leveraged location that drove consumers into retail locations to test drive high-end lawn mowers.

The marketer used mobile advertising earlier this year to increase foot traffic to more than 200 retail events at hardware chain The Home Depot and other retail locations where consumers could learn more about the lawn mowers. Cub Cadet worked with agency Brunner and Verve Mobile on the mobile campaign.

?We knew that we had to be smart with our targeting and also cover the amount of DMAs, and the location-based targeting that mobile provided seemed like a perfect fit to reach consumers that were close to the venues in a timely manner,? said Tom Reinecke, media buyer and planner at Brunner, Pittsburgh.

Driving foot traffic
The retail events took place in 69 markets in the United States to show off Cub Cadet?s products, which can cost up to $3,000.

This was the second year that Cub Cadet has used retail events, and this year the brand decided to pump up its media buy with location-specific placements.

Mobile campaigns for the events ran from Feb. 28 to May 26, with the targeted mobile ads beginning one to three weeks before each retail event began.

The mobile ads were geofenced in either a 10-mile or three to five-mile radius around Home Depot and other retail stores that participated in the Cub Cadet events.

The ads ran within Verve's network of mobile sites and applications, with publishers including the Associated Press, NBC, TriCities.com, Oregon Live and Ohio.com.

The ad included creative with tap-to-map and tap-to-calendar functionality.

According to Brunner and Verve, the 1.10 average click-through rate is three times the average for mobile campaigns.

More than 2,000 events were mapped by consumers, and 1,000 click-to-calendars were added.

There was also a spike in click-through rates within the six to 15 miles of where a campaign ran for the click-to-map portion of the campaign, likely because consumers wanted to take a direct action after being served the ad.

An additional campaign within the Seattle and Portland area promoted Cub Cadet sales via geo-aware campaigns and claimed a roughly 1 percent click-through rate.

The click-to-map functionality

Location, location, location
Cub Cadet has used mobile advertising in the past, but with mobile video that was used to reach a larger audience.

Cub Cadet is still planning media for 2014, but expects to include more mobile as the medium continues to grab a bigger piece of media mixes.

For an event such as a test drive, location-based mobile advertising is particularly effective.

In fact, a report from Verve earlier this year found that mobile campaigns outperform campaigns that do not leverage location (see story).

?I think we are seeing tremendous success with mobile advertising driving to events,? said Michael May, Detroit-based regional vice president of sales at Verve Mobile.

?The combination of a click-to-call and click-to-map provided a good mix for mobile users to either save the event to their calendar or to get directions,? he said.

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