Mobile marketing will get another major boost this Sunday when many Super Bowl advertisements drive viewers to either text or visit a mobile Web site as a call to action.

Key advertisers using mobile in their media mix or pushing their mobile products include online brokerage E*Trade Financial, Johnsonville Sausage, Jiffy Lube, H&R Block and Budweiser. Is this yet another tipping point for mobile, just as the Apple iPhone's launch was in July 2007?

"Certainly, everyone in the U.S. has woken up as to how the Obama campaign had used mobile marketing and because they understand how powerful that is, companies are realizing that the Super Bowl offers a similar venue for people who are interested or involved in a focused topic," said Mike Wehrs, president/CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association, New York.

Pro-mobile
Take E*Trade. The company's 30-second spot for the Super Bowl XLIII is expected to push its E*Trade Mobile Pro trading platform for the BlackBerry that was popularized by its "Talking Baby" campaign.

The Talking Baby theme returns again this year after being held as the reason for the double-digit growth in new brokerage accounts immediately following last year's football game.

This year, a viral push complements the TV commercial including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube executions.

For example, footage that did not make it into the new 30-second spot featuring irreverent outtakes video shots of the Baby is posted on http://youtube.com/etrade. The teaser ad is designed to generate buzz as well as ROI before and after the Super Bowl commercial airs.

"In this uncertain climate, reinforcing the strength of our brand and value proposition is critical," said Pam Erickson, Boston-based senior vice president of corporate communication at E*Trade.

"Now is the time to re-engage our audience and reinforce our brand promise, which is to continually innovate on our products, tools and support in order to make online trading and investing easy and inexpensive," she said.

Then there's Johnsonville Sausage. The national brand of brats, Italian sausage, smoked links and breakfast sausage links is running a text-to-win mobile marketing campaign for the Super Bowl (see story).

Not to be left out, Anheuser-Busch Inc.'s Budweiser is sponsoring the new TampaBay.com mobile site for The St. Petersburg Times, the leading newspaper for the St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay cities (see story).

Budweiser is a major TV advertiser during this most-watched sporting event nationwide.

Super Bowl XLIII will take place in Tampa, FL, on Feb. 1. The Pittsburgh Steelers will take on the Arizona Cardinals for the NFL championship.

An estimated 97.5 million viewers are said to have watched the Super Bowl and its ads last year. But with more mobile phones than TVs, brands are realizing the need to include mobile in their marketing outreach plans.

Block, stock and barrel
ChaCha is betting on SMS advertising over WAP advertising, showing a divide even within mobile.

The rich SMS ad service returns ads with answers to questions texted in to its CHACHA short code.

Consider how its clients are using mobile during the Super Bowl. H&R Block will target users who inquire about tax-related issues and promote its free online tax preparation service by directing users to a WAP page at http://m.hrblock.com.

Jiffy Lube is another ChaCha client. The oil-change chain is targeting ChaCha users in Indiana to promote a free tire rotation with a signature oil change.

ChaCha will also participate in the excitement around the Super Bowl, returning the latest scores when by asked by text. It will also offer information on how much nacho cheese is likely to be eaten on Super Bowl Sunday.

Advertisers and marketers also realize that the one instrument next to the viewer's TV remote control during the Super Bowl broadcast on CBS will be the mobile phone -- checking messages and emails, surfing the mobile Web or responding to mobile calls to action getting shout-outs in the TV spots.

E*Trade's Ms. Erickson certainly understands this new environment.

"Our customers are at the forefront of the evolving mobile lifestyle -- always on the go and increasingly relying on wireless to handle many everyday tasks," Ms. Erickson said.