Vignettes from day 1 of the FTC mobile event
May 7, 2008
Laying a foundation for mobile
WASHINGTON -- What does mobile marketing mean to Procter & Gamble Co.?
It's a permission-based real-time interaction channel available anywhere, according to Jean Berberich, digital marketing innovation manager of mobile at P&G. Her company also considers mobile as the third screen, after television and the computer.
"It's an extension of a marketing plan," Ms. Berberich told delegates at the Federal Trade Commission's "Beyond Voice: Mapping the Mobile Marketplace" workshop. "It's really not a marketing channel. It really gives us the opportunity to interact with the consumer when they choose at the time they need to.
"[But] we're still in the test and learn phase," she said.
Besides that exploratory stage, P&G is also trying to figure out mobile's proof of value to consumers.
Measuring the performance of mobile campaigns is also another issue, although the company has developed its own method of gauging an effort's effectiveness.
And then there's the education. Ms. Berberich has to spend considerable time educating her colleagues on mobile marketing.
"I hate to say this, we've got a lot of older people making decisions at companies like mine," she said.
It doesn't help to throw around words like WAP sites at these decision makers who can't understand mobile jargon. Ms. Berberich refers to them simply as mobile sites.
"We've got to start talking marketing talk," she said.
In contrast to several marketers, P&G has drawn up a mobile privacy policy that is worth emulating. There are five guidelines.
First, consumer opt-in is a must. Second, the call to action is valued. Third, double opt-ins are required when consumers sign up for a mobile program. Fourth, the opts are to be used only for specific programs. Finally, there must be an easy opt-out process.
P&G's operations in Asia are certainly ahead of the U.S. headquarters in use of mobile. Company brands such as Tampax, Cover Girl, Vicks and Pringles are all trying out mobile.
Here in the United States, P&G is currently running a mobile campaign for Cover Girl. The effort targets younger women who love makeup and decking up.
Ads in magazines and Web sites such as ElleGirl.com and CosmoGirl bear mobile calls to action for consumers to text in for information and also to see if they can find the right shade.
The ultimate goal is to have these consumers buy Cover Girl foundation, Ms. Berberich said.
"People want valuable information," Ms. Berberich said. "Cover Girl continues to include mobile in their plan."
She pointed out that "the consumers who really get mobile [with] unlimited plans, they engage in like crazy."
That said, she said "we're still trying to find out about the value of mobile. It's all about choice and relevant content."
Ben Ezrick is seeing an increasing amount of consumption of mobile.
He enjoys an enviable vantage point of that trend as senior strategist of digital innovation at Ogilvy Interactive.
"Mobile is moving from third screen to first screen," Mr. Ezrick said.
He used a mobile marketer's favorite weapon to make his case: numbers. He said there are 233 million phone users in the United States, although acknowledging those numbers were old (it is roughly 260 million today).
Mr. Ezrick said that 200 million phones in the U.S. are capable of sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages. There are also 185 million data and WAP-enabled phones and 12 million video-enabled phones.
That said, only 13 percent of the U.S. population accesses the mobile Web regularly on their mobile phones, he said.
"The iPhone lived up to its hype," Mr. Ezrick said. "Eighty-five percent of iPhone users access the Web compared with 13 percent of the general market and 60 percent of smartphone users."
A couple of reasons explain the high Web usage on the iPhone: Apple requires all buyers to get a data plan and a good user experience.
There are five potential mobile marketing solutions, according to Mr. Ezrick.
First, text message campaigns. Approximately 60 percent of the U.S. population uses SMS. The second offering is WAP pages on- and off-deck. Third is video, with services such as MobiTV or free offerings from CBS News and Reuters, both short clips and free.
Next is mobile coupons. Quick-response codes are available on few U.S. phones but widely prevalent in Asia, where the bar code-recognition applications are embedded on the device.
Finally, there are downloadable content games, some including ads in them.
Mr. Ezrick cited three mobile efforts that his agency undertook for clients.
The campaign for Lenovo two years ago was to build brand awareness for the Chinese company that bought IBM Corp.'s computer business, including the ThinkPad notebook brand.
The campaign on USA Today's mobile site generated a 188 percent increase in Lenovo awareness among those consumers who saw the mobile ad.
Awareness went up 500 percent among people who clicked through the Lenovo mobile ad, Mr. Ezrick said, moving awareness of the ThinkPad from IBM to Lenovo.
The Kraft mobile exercise is a case of extending an existing online marketing campaign to the mobile environment.
Kraft sends out email alerts to opted-in consumers for what they should be making for dinner. Extending to mobile seemed logical. Consumers can now sign up online for alerts sent to the mobile phone, including recipe of the day or recipe of the week.
So, consumers have that recipe on their phone the next time they visit the supermarket to buy ingredients for a meal.
Another campaign used mobile along with traditional media channels. The client was Select Comfort, a maker of mattresses. Ads in print and elsewhere included a toll-free number, Web address and short code to text.
The text message response rate was six times higher than the response from other channels, Mr. Ezrick claimed.
"Consumers want to engage," he said.
More tomorrow on the cat set among the pigeons by Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. Also included: his back-and-forth with Gene Keenan, vice president of mobile services at Isobar Global.