ESPN The Magazine has released a magazine with fully interactive advertising powered by SnapTell, a provider of image-recognition-based mobile marketing services.

Readers can use their handset's camera phone to get real-time promotional information from advertisers by snapping and sending a picture of a "live" print ad to SnapTell. Participating sponsors include major brands such as Sony, Toyota, Target, HBO, GMC Sierra, Progressive, Dell, Absolut, Wolverine and Mobil.

"ESPN's mobile strategy includes leveraging their offline advertising to drive traffic to their mobile Web site, offer ESPN sports alerts, ringtones, etcetera," said G. D. Ramkumar, Ph.D., cofounder and chief technology officer of SnapTell Inc., Palo Alto, CA. "As are all print publications, ESPN The Magazine is a static medium.

"SnapTell enhanced the September NFL Preview issue of ESPN The Magazine with a fun element of interactivity for readers on many advertising pages," he said.

ESPN offered SMS sports alerts, ringtones, wallpapers and product samples to its readers.

ESPN The Magazine is a bi-weekly sports magazine published by the ESPN sports network in Bristol, CT.

SnapTell's publishing and advertising clients include Rolling Stone, Condé Nast's GQ, Men's Health, Martha Stewart Weddings and the Discovery Channel.

A full list of campaigns and customers of SnapTell can be found at http://snaptell.com.

The SnapTell campaign for ESPN used MMS with image recognition.

Mobile offers returned included SMS alerts, binary content such as ringtones and product samples to users that send in their mailing address via SMS.

Readers snap a picture of any ad in this interactive issue and get entered into a drawing to win a trip for two to Tampa, FL for the ESPN The Magazine NEXT '09 Big Weekend Event during Super Bowl 2009.

Advertisers such as Dell, GMC, HBO, Mobile, Progressive, Sony and Toyota are also providing special rewards to participating readers.

SnapTell's technology lets consumers snap a picture of the cover of any DVD, CD, book or video game with their camera phone and within seconds see a rating, description and more information.

SnapTell's image-matching database includes millions of cover pictures.

Consumers can send their camera phone pictures to to get information on the product.

The last decade saw explosive growth in mobile phone users. Currently, there are more than 2.5 billion mobile subscribers globally and more than 250 million mobile subscribers in U.S.

Subscribers are using their mobile device for more than just voice communications.

Data services such as SMS and MMS messaging, wallpaper/ringtone/video downloads, game downloads and Internet access are becoming ubiquitous.

In fact, SMS messaging has gone beyond just another way to communicate.

According to M:Metrics, almost three out of four mobile subscribers reported receiving an ad via SMS in July 2007.

While the volume in SMS ads may not be as high in the U.S., it showed the strongest response rate, at 12 percent.

No wonder mobile marketing is rapidly becoming a force in the marketing mix.

With Snaptell's Snap.Send.Get service, every camera phone is now converted into an opt-in mobile marketing device.

Consumers get information with a snap of their camera phones and marketers can create a targeted and personal brand conversation in the process.

A Snap.Send.Get campaign manager can drag and drop product images into the SnapTell image database to match with corresponding content to be pushed to consumers' mobile phones.

This content can include ringtones, wallpapers, video downloads, WAP links and mobile coupons.

"We train publishers and advertisers to use the technology, and the sales team has direct relationships with advertisers, but usually we work with publishers and the agency that runs campaigns for the brands," Mr. Ramkumar said. "We are engaged with anywhere from 12 to 20 publications running interactive mobile advertising campaigns that are already in progress.

"We expect a major ramp-up in 2009 and we expect a broad cross-section of new publications -- and new categories of publications -- to launch interactive mobile campaigns in the near future," he said.