NEW YORK -- A national campaign to promote the Protégé line of basketball shoes, sold exclusively at Kmart stores, incorporated a mobile call to action and generated a 1.5 percent click-through rate.

The campaign details were discussed at the "IAB Marketplace -- Mobile" conference in New York's Roosevelt Hotel. The call to action asked consumers to text PROTEGE to 39372 for a link to receive free ringtone downloads.

"We did a strategic and targeted buy," said Phuc Truong, senior vice president of advertising sales at Mobext. "We know African American teens are out and about and playing basketball so one of our calls to action was placed on a New York City subway ad."

Consumers that answered the calls to action were pushed a link to a WAP site, which had downloadable wallpapers, a store locator directing users to the nearest Kmart for Protégé merchandise and functionality to send a friend a message from Al Harrington, the NBA player who starred in television commercials promoting the shoe line.

More than 3,000 people texted in within the first month.

The push messages drove more than 100,000 clicks to the WAP site and 22 percent of these visitors went on to view the product gallery. Also, 20 percent downloaded either a ringtone or wallpaper.

"Media placement with carrier targeting [Boost Mobile] proved to be very effective in driving campaign performance," Mr. Truong said. "The custom mobile site had just the right mix of features that drove user engagement.

"Not only did the audience respond to free downloads, the product gallery pages and store locator views were among the highest viewed pages," he said.

The campaign was part of a larger discussion at the IAB conference.

The panel, moderated by Gary Schwartz, CEO of Impact Mobile, was comprised of industry members that that helped create the IAB Mobile Buyer's Guide, which debuted at the show.

Panelists helped attendees with a step by step playbook for managing their own mobile buys.

Michael Collins, CEO of Joule said that the media buy should depend solely on the type of mobile user that the brand is trying to reach.

All of the panelists agreed that there were several mechanics in the mobile media and planning that are similar to those of the online PC world.

But, Mr. Collins pointed out two very important differences.

"The biggest is that mobile is still evolving and there are a few sites with huge scale," Mr. Collins said. "With mobile, most of the media planning is done through an ad network and gaining reach is a labor-intensive process.

"Another issue with mobile is the fact that most brands still don't get it and aren't able to get value after the click," he said.

But Mr. Collins didn't have a completely negative view of the mobile landscape.

Camero Clayton, vice president of mobile and business development of The Weather Channel Interactive had an interesting standpoint, since his company has quite a large reach on the mobile channel.

Mr. Clayton said that mobile is different from online because it is less cluttered than other platforms.

He compared WCI's online site, which is full of advertisements competing for visitor's attention, as opposed to the mobile site, which just showcases one banner ad at a time.

"There are a lot of similarities between mobile Internet and the Web," said Paran Johar, chief marketing officer at JumpTap. "Mobile is very personal is kind of like the Internet on steroids.

"Do we really want to make the mobile Internet the same as the Web?" he asked. "The opportunity for mobile Internet isn't just the ads. It's about building a value exchange with the mobile consumer.

"There's value when you're in London and get served an ad for a hotel in London. It's relevant and not just some ?punch the monkey' ad."

The panelists all agreed that relevancy is the biggest driver in mobile.

For the second part of the panel, panelists discussed how mobile should fit into overall media buys.

"I was thinking about why mobile works and why this is such a big deal," said Joy Liuzzo, director of marketing and mobile research at InsightExpress. "I mean I get it, mobile has less clutter on the page, the proportion of the ad is beneficial, but what is the channel's secret sauce?

"And then it came to me: engagement," she said.

Halleluiah!

According to Steven Rosenblatt, senior vice president of advertising sales at Quattro Wireless, we should not look at mobile in a vacuum.

Mr. Rosenblatt said that people are now going to the mobile versions of sites as opposed to the online site.

"The creative size might not be that large, but the proportion is grand," Mr. Rosenblatt said.
"You'll get unduplicated reach just by including mobile into your overall marketing plan."

Mr. Truong of Mobext agreed and said that brands can bridge gaps with mobile.

"Mobile is best integrated with other media channels," he said.

An example was given.

JC Penney ran mobile banner ads asking people to sign up for an after Christmas wakeup call. Consumers who clicked through were routed to a micro storefront where they were asked to sign up for the SMS alerts.

There was also an SMS store finder.

"No matter what area, touch point or time of day, mobile is a great way to engage with consumers in a way you cannot do in other mediums," Mr. Rosenblatt said.

Joe Lazzlo, research director at IAB and Kristine Van Dillen, director of industry initiatives and partnerships at the Mobile Marketing Association announced that their organizations are collaborating to help establish standards across mobile display and SMS ads online.

"One of the important pieces here is that try to measure the lowest common denominator of what is measurable in the space right now," Ms. Van Dillen said. "Our collaborative guidelines will focus on what roles metrics are playing in mobile now.

"We want to be able to find some common language to let people communicate across campaigns," she said.