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Coca-Cola exec: Mobile is the last place consumers look before they buy

NEW YORK ? A Coca-Cola executive at the Netbiscuits World 2012 conference said that mobile presents lots of opportunities with point-of-sale and grabbing consumers? attentions at the moment of truth right before they buy.

During the ?A Conversation with Coca-Cola. The Liquid & Linked Mobilization of The Olympics? session, the executive spoke about how the soda giant used mobile in the recent London Olympics. The session was moderated by Giselle Abramovich, senior editor of brands and deputy managing editor at Digiday, New York.

?Everybody has mobile devices ? it is the last place folks look before they buy a Coca-Cola,? said Kim Siler, mobile brand strategist for The Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta.

?We want it to be able to reach our brand ? obviously in this case we used it with engagement at the Olympics ? but we also need to do it at point of sale,? she said.

Link on mobile
With the increase of consumers shopping via the mobile Web, Ms. Siler said that she envisions a time when consumers will be able to buy Coca-Cola through their mobile devices.

However, there is not a clear-cut preferred way for consumers to buy through yet.

Additionally, Ms. Siler spoke about responsive design. Per the exec, the technology is not a cure-all and mobile Web experiences still need to be tailored to specific devices.

Mobile games
Coca-Cola?s Olympic campaign included three main mobile components ? SMS, mobile Web and applications.

Coca-Cola breaks down its mobile budget into three areas. Seventy percent is typically allocated to mediums that have been proven to work, 20 percent goes into mediums that make the 70 percent work and 10 percent is invested into new mediums.

SMS programs for the campaign were launched in nine markets.

In the Canada market, the campaign generated a 55 percent engagement rate, showing how the opportunities for marketers to use the medium as a communication channel for a longer, one-on-one relationship with consumers.

The executive also said she was surprised by the amount of time and engagement that users spent with the campaign?s app, which let users create a customized song beat by moving their devices.

The gap between mobile usage and budget spend is wide, leaving many brands questioning how much of their budgets they should be allocating to mobile.

Although Ms. Siler did not provide a specific dollar amount, the executive did say that mobile received approximately one-fourth of the budget that the desktop portion of the Olympic campaign received.

For example, a recent study from the Mobile Marketing Association recommends that brands use seven percent of their marketing budgets to mobile. However, according to the exec, mobile needs to be included into a more comprehensive part of a strategy.

?I really think we?re going to be successful with mobile when we stop calling it mobile,? Ms. Siler said.

?If you wait for budgets to get to that little specific thing, it should be more than that,? she said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York