Cosmetics maker Nivea has wrapped up the second mobile phase of its "Beauty Is â?¦" campaign after results from the first user-generated content effort are said to have exceeded expectations.

The first mobile campaign, running September and October in Britain, is claimed to have led 27 percent of the target audience to interact with the brand and visit the Beauty Is mobile site - linkable only on a mobile browser via http://o2.w98.org/tesco/?ctag=tesco - by opening a link sent back to their mobile phone after their first interaction. There was an average of 8 page impressions per user once they were on the site.

"Results exceeded expectations by seven times," said Candice Landsman, spokeswoman at Flix Marketing, the London firm responsible for creating the mobile part of the campaign.

Conceived and managed by London-based Carat Sponsorship, the Beauty Is campaign is designed to encourage a discussion on what beauty means to different people.

The campaign's second phase ran Jan. 8 to Feb. 8, aimed at driving interaction with the mobile site.

When consumers texted in their definition of beauty to the 80231 short code, the text was automatically incorporated into a Nivea-branded wallpaper. Consumers were sent a text informing them that a wallpaper was created out of their words and they could collect it by opening the link and visiting the site.

Besides downloads, consumers can send the personalized wallpapers to their friends. Visitors to the site can also upload images reflecting their idea of beauty, download Nivea wallpapers, request a free Nivea sample and join the Nivea club.

"The campaign has just finished, so we cannot be transparent with the results," Ms. Landsman said, "but it has been successful in driving a significantly higher percentage of people to the site."

The goal of the Beauty Is campaign is to bring the Nivea brand emotionally closer to its target audience.
Unlike the previous mobile campaign which targeted mainly males, the second phase was aimed primarily at women ages 17-35.

Nivea's strategy was to "use mobile to develop a closer relationship to their target audience by allowing them to engage instantly," Ms. Landsman said.

The last mobile campaign was supported by spreads with text call-to-action in British weekly magazines such as Closer and Grazia. Flix also ran banner ads on the homepage of O2 Active and Tesco Mobile, which is the mobile site of British supermarket chain and grocer Tesco.

Founded in 2002, Flix handles mobile campaigns for clients including Guinness World Records, Warner Bros., Friends of the Earth, Nike and Swiftcover.

Working across this swathe of clients gives Flix a fair inkling of key mobile media trends.

"Increasing number of people are browsing mobile sites -- 23 percent of the population in the U.K. -- and consumption is now starting to be driven in terms of convenience -- checking train times, Facebook, et cetera -- as well as downloading content including wallpapers and ringtones," Ms. Landsman said.