HBO Pay-Per-View used mobile to drive awareness and purchases of the Mayweather-Marquez fight, and to generate opt-ins for its mobile VIP club.

Consumers were asked to text PELEA to a short code for a chance to win a signed boxing glove and received an SMS message back inviting them to join the VIP club. An impressive 12.9 percent clicked through, and of them, nearly 70 percent opted into the club, giving HBO a valuable database for remarketing purposes.

?Looking for new, targeted and unique ways to drive purchases of the fight telecast, HBO Pay-Per-View came to HipCricket to reach opted-in Hispanics who choose to receive information and offers from brands they trust,? said Jeff Hasen, chief marketing officer of HipCricket, Kirkland, WA. 

?Consumers want offers ? we see that time and again,? he said. ?The lure was a signed boxing glove in this case, a relatively minor expense for HBO given the upside.

?While impressive, the click-through response wasn?t especially surprising given the permission-based nature of our marketing and advertising network.?

Targeting Hispanics
HBO was targeting Hispanics for this particular campaign.

The domestic Hispanic market is fast-growing?four times the rate of the general population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau?and highly lucrative.

Like most populations, it has increasingly eluded mainstream advertisers using traditional, broad-brush media to reach its members with culturally-relevant messages.

The answer has been mobile.

Key indicators show mobile, and in particular SMS, to be the ideal medium for marketing to Hispanics.

According to the Mobile Marketing Association, 32 percent of Hispanic mobile subscribers are interested or highly interested in receiving offers and 87 percent of Hispanic households have multiple mobile phones.

More than half of Hispanic mobile users regularly text, per the MMA.

The HipCricket Hispanic Mobile Marketing Network involves more than 70 radio and television stations and brand distribution partners. It reaches Hispanic Americans in more than 40 markets, including 14 of the top 15 Hispanic markets.

HBO is not new to the mobile space.

The cable network went mobile in March with a site that gives on-the-go customers access to its content.

HBO tapped Mobile Streams to manage and host the new mobile site at http://www.hbomobile.com (see story).

?Mobile was the perfect vehicle because, unlike email, the offers in our Hispanic network are desired rather than viewed as spam,? Mr. Hasen said.  ?People don?t want just any ads ? they want compelling, relevant offers.

?Plus, HBO?s messages received immediate response given subscribers take their devices everywhere and respond wherever they are,? he said.