NEW YORK - A Kraft executive at the 2012 MMA Forum said that one of the most exciting things about mobile is that it influences customer behavior at the moment of purchase.

During the panel, ?A Day in the (Media) Life of a Consumer,? the focus of the conversation was on how mobile is impacting consumer behavior and the opportunities this presents marketers. The Kraft executive said that is changing how brands engage with consumers.

?Mobile is more important than ever because it is a device that is with you at all times,? said B. Bonin Bough, vice president of global media and consumer engagement at Kraft Foods, Northfield, IL. ?As you look at the consumer journey, for the first time ever buying might be driven by awareness because at the moment of truth, mobile can actually deliver.?

?We see usage on our recipe sites spike when consumers are in the store making a buying decision,? he said. ?We also believe mobile drive impulse buys.?

The panel moderator was Jonathan Carson, CEO of digital at Nielsen. The other panelists were Nick Shore, senior vice president of strategic insights and research at MTV, Geoffrey Handley, co-founder and chief marketing officer at The Hyperfactory and Christopher Reynolds, executive director of analytics at Conde Nast.

Brand-building renaissance
Per Mr. Bonin, a brand-building renaissance is taking place thanks to mobile?s strengths as a tool for driving awareness at the right place and time.

However, mobile?s evolution is being held back by the challenges with regard to measuring the success of a mobile campaign,

?The measurement hasn?t caught up with the consumer behavior,? Mr. Bonin said. ?We have to demand better measurement from all of our partners.

Despite the lack of metrics, Mr. Bonin still encourages marketers to dive into mobile sooner rather than later because the opportunity is so significant. This is a step Kraft has taken and seen success as a result.

?As a brand marketer, do you want to wait to start building a competitive advantage or do you want to start now?,? Mr. Bonin said. ?We put a man on the moon but we can?t figure out how to measure a mobile campaign.?

?We built a continuous CRM platform that starts from the beginning stages of a purchase and it has been hugely successful for us.

?We all know this is where it is going. I would rather be ahead of that curve than behind it and have to try to catch up.?

According to an MTV executive, opportunities can be found in the way that mobile is influencing consumer media consumption habits. In particular, the brand?s millennial audience is increasingly expecting that TV content will be available everywhere at all times for free.

For example, for a weekly show there is a big gap between airings so MTV is looking mobile and other platforms as a way to engage fans with a show brand on a constant basis just now with the actual show itself.

?We are figuring out how to take a show and make it available everywhere in some shape or form,? said MTV?s Mr. Shore. ?There are all these different options, different experiences, the ability to go deep or offer related and we are trying to figure out the matrix and capture all of the incremental opportunities to engage with our fans.

Multiple touch points
Conde Nast is taking two different approaches to mobile. One is to try to reach the consumer throughout their entire day via mobile versions of brands such as Epicurious and Style.com. The other is tap into the connection with entertainment that many of its brands have.

?We can now see that Vanity Fair readers are coming to our digital edition during prime time and we are assuming that this is while they are watching TV,? said Conde Nast?s Mr. Reynolds. ?We know that co-consumption is going on so as we start to develop more enhanced content we are looking at how to draw attention to this connection.

The challenge for brands in the new environment is that there are an increasing number of touch points. The answer is not to simply take existing content and bring it to the new platforms but to figure out how the brand will be most useful to users in each platform.

?We don?t look at it as mobile ? we look at the concept of mobility,? said The Hyperfactory?s Mr. Handley. ?There are all these touch points ? mobile phones, the screen in a car or on the fridge ? and at all of these consumers are going to be expecting engagements with brands.

?It is not about taking everything you have and sticking it there,? he said. ?That?s not what consumers want and will make them angry.?

Per Handley, there are examples of how some brand are addressing these changes effectively. For example, when Lowe?s shoppers scan a QR code on the packaging of a product in the store, they see inspirational information about the item. However, when the same QR code is scanned once the product is at home, the user sees installation information.

?In the last three or four years, brands have led the way in creating platforms for brand engagement and investing in a long-term platform for engagement with the consumer on the ever increasing number of platforms.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York