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Fandango Iron Man 2 mobile video ads exceed 6 percent CTR

The average click-through rate of movie-ticketing giant Fandango?s commerce-enabled Iron Man 2 mobile video ads surpassed 6 percent?more than eight times as effective as the average PC Internet video ad.

Fandango?s marketing goal was to drive movie ticket sales for Iron Man 2 Movie. Fandango wanted to target their main demographic of movie-goers and action lovers, so the company chose to place ads powered by iVdopia within movie, entertainment/gaming and sports applications.

?What we are seeing in the market is a tremendous demand for mobile video ads from pretty much every brand in the market,? said Chhavi Upadhyay, cofounder and chief operating officer of Vdopia Inc., San Francisco. ?The announcement of iAds actually increased the demand for mobile rich-media and video advertising?brands now think of the iPhone as a mainstream marketing medium and they are putting more budget into mobile.

?Mobile video ads are really picking up now,? she said. ?Because of the general response from the market to mobile video, [studies predict that] 44 percent of mobile spend will happen in mobile video going forward,? she said.

?More brands are entering the mobile advertising space, as they are seeing it as a mainstream medium.?

By the beginning of this year, Fandango had already rolled out a mobile Web site and applications for Apple?s iPhone and iPod touch, Google?s Android, Research In Motion?s BlackBerry and Palm?s webOS (see story).

In February, Fandango tapped mobile ad network Apptera to develop and operate 1-800-Fandango, an interactive voice recognition movie show time and mobile ticketing service (see story).

In March, Fandango debuted a mobile ticketing program where consumers can get movie tickets sent as bar codes to their mobile devices (see story).

Vdopia?s iVdopia is a mobile ad network and platform specializing in mobile video and rich media. It has direct relationships with application developers for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android platforms.

Fandango taps mobile video to drive sales
Fandango provided iVdopia with a Flash creative with a countdown of days left until the movie?s premiere.

IVdopia helped convert the Flash creative into a video advertisement and executed the countdown with different video creative each day from April 29 to May 7.

The mobile video ads appeared in a variety of applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, including Skyworks? Goaaal! Lite, Arcade Hoops Basketball Lite, Field Goal Frenzy Lite, Arcade Bowling Lite, 3 Point Hoops Basketball Lite and World Cup Air Hockey Lite.

Other applications wherein the ads appeared include Redwind Software?s Movie Challenge Lite, iBowl Classic, iBaseball, iBasketball and Recreational Gaming LLC?s iOdds.

The mobile video ad creative had a clear call-to-action asking consumers to buy tickets that resulted it in 6.17 percent of users clicking on the ?Buy Tickets? icon.

On average, more than 25 percent of users who click on an iVdopia mobile video ad also do a post-click action.

Fandango received more than 50,000 actions on the custom Iron Man 2 Talk2Me page created by iVdopia.

Around 25,000 users clicked on the ?Buy Tickets? icon and more than 11,800 users viewed the trailer for the Iron Man 2 movie.

More than 5,800 consumers click to download the Fandango application, while another 7,800 clicked to view Iron Man 2 showtimes.

Forty-nine percent of users who clicked on the ad decided to buy tickets now, while 23 percent viewed the trailer, 16 percent searched showtimes and 12 percent downloaded the application.

In total, the mobile video campaign generated 817,495 impressions and 50,410 clicks through iVdopia?s Talk2Me actions in nine days.

?This high performance makes iVdopia Talk2Me ads suitable not only for branding campaigns, but also their effectiveness makes them very apt for performance and conversion campaigns as well,? Ms. Upadhyay said. ?We are seeing all sorts of mobile campaigns, branding campaigns as well as performance campaigns with mobile video, either CPC or CPA.

?Those kinds of campaigns also coming up heavily with mobile video ads, as their performance is very, very high, so it makes sense for people looking for conversions and performance-based ads,? she said.

?It makes sense for them to advertise with video instead of banners, because they get competitive rates in terms of CPC and much better creative.?

Whether it is due to the novelty factor or the fact that there is less clutter on a mobile screen or other factors, mobile video advertising consistently takes wired Web video ads to the cleaners.

?Mobile ads for all of our campaigns have been more effective than Internet ads for a few reasons,? Ms. Upadhyay said. ?Mobile video ads are still relatively new?when Internet ads first started, response rates were double what they are now, but people got used to it.

?In the case of the mobile experience, the screen is right in front of them wherever they are, and if they get interested, they can take an action immediately, which is probably why the performance of all of these mobile campaigns have been phenomenal,? she said.