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Dunkin Donuts, Burger King see advertising success on TWC mobile destinations

Please click here to access the archived webinar, ?Mobile Apps: Consumer Usage, Loyalty and Advertiser Impact?

Brands such as Dunkin? Donuts, Burger King and Toyota have seen success advertising to The Weather Channel?s 20 million-plus monthly mobile users.

During an hour-long Weather Channel-sponsored Mobile Marketer webinar, executives from the company discussed how mobile applications affect consumer usage, loyalty and advertiser impact. The webinar panel also included a speaker from Primary Insight and was moderated by Mobile Marketer?s Dan Butcher.

?Weather is something that we know from all of our platforms to be something important,? said Paul Borgese, director of research and insights at The Weather Channel, Atlanta. 

Dunkin? Donuts used the company?s advertising platform to promote its new sausage pancake bites.

The company ran a banner ad which said ?New Sausage Pancake Bites. 3 for $1.59. Try Them.?

When users clicked on the ad, they are redirected to a page that lets them shake their device to find two great tastes in one bite.

Then, users can find the closest location the features the new products.

Additionally, Burger King ran a similar banner ad that advertised a Friday promotion the afternoon before.

The ad opened up and showed users information about the promotions and showed them the closest locations.

Burger King ran a banner ad on the application

The ad expands with an offer for consumers

Users can then find the closest Burger King location

?We are seeing a major initiative to standardize the creation of rich-media,? said Sheila Buckley, senior vice president of sales at Weather Channel Digital and Mobile.

According to Ms. Buckley, Weather Channel is working with companies who want to advertise across all platforms, and Apple?s iPad is taking the market by storm.

The company worked with Toyota and Medialets to create a custom campaign that promoted its new Sienna Minivan.

?It?s interesting with the iPad,? Ms. Buckley said. ?Each time a new form of media comes into play, users want to click on everything.

?The response rates are tremendous on the iPad,? she said.

Mobile study
The Weather Channel?s Mr. Borgese talked about a survey that the company conducted in November where it recruited a variety of respondents of those that use applications in general and others who used his company's application.

The study found that Apple is dominant for usage, but BlackBerry and Android also rank high.

In addition, the study found that weather and search were the most commonly used applications next to maps and news.

Fifty-seven percent of users said that they use the Weather Channel mobile application at least once a day.

Additionally, 59 percent of users surveyed said that they prefer having ads run to support the application versus paying a fee, while 37 percent said that they would not mind a one-time nominal fee.

?The fact that 37 percent said that they would pay for the fee, it was encouraging to us,? Mr. Borgese said. ?The fact that they recognize and attribute this value to us let us know that we?re doing this job for them.?

The success of apps
According to Kathryn Koegel, chief of insights at Primary Impact, there is a certain appeal of applications.

?Applications are huge and they?re going to become a lot more bigger as tablets emerge on the scene,? Ms. Koegel said.

Ms. Koegel referenced a recent comScore study that showed that weather dominated the top genres for mobile application usage, with maps and social networking taking second and third place, respectively.

There are 56 million U.S. mobile application users.

Twenty-five percent of the total U.S. population currently uses applications and the number is expected to increase rapidly as smartphone adoption increases and tablets from Samsung, BlackBerry, Lenovo and Sony leap into the market.

The average application users is 32 and slightly more likely to be male, Per Ms. Koegel.

Additionally, Ms. Koegel said that measurement plays a key role.

When users download an application it shows their expression of interest, but downloads do not equate to usage. Many users have applications on their handsets that they do not use.

?Given that apps are becoming a significant form of media, we really wanted to understand what makes one app become a regular media habit,? Ms. Koegel said.