HipCricket, Enticent partner to help media companies with mobile

By Dan Butcher

September 19, 2008

In France it's Royale with Cheese

Mobile marketing company HipCricket has partnered with Enticent, the maker of the StickyFish points-based loyalty program for media companies such as radio stations.

By bringing together their services, HipCricket and Enticent will provide broadcast stations with a single point-registration process and the ability for their audiences to earn loyalty points from Enticent's StickyFish platform when they interact with mobile services provided by HipCricket.

"By bringing together the leaders in the loyalty space and the mobile marketing space, we are providing customers with a single access point into their loyalty clubs," said Ivan Braiker, CEO of HipCricket, Kirkland, WA.

"And, we are also giving stations a way to reward their audiences through a variety of interaction points, an important one being on their mobile device, where stations can interact with them anytime, anywhere," he said. "In addition, we're providing stations with a variety of new sponsorship ideas to sell to advertisers."

HipCricket claims to have delivered more than 17,000 mobile marketing campaigns for major brands and broadcast stations.

Enticent's StickyFish loyalty program

These customers include Clear Channel Radio, Premiere Radio Networks, Sandusky Broadcasting, NBC, Coca Cola, Staples, Hershey's and Jameson.

Enticent is a provider of turn-key database, email and loyalty marketing programs deployed by more than 300 media brands.

Enticent products are used to increase ratings and Web traffic while driving audience database growth and generating direct response for advertisers.

Enticent clients include media properties owned by Clear Channel, CBS Radio, Entercom, Comcast, Belo, Citadel and Tribune.

"We currently have a number of stations that partner with both Enticent and HipCricket ,but the majority of our current partners do not overlap," Mr. Braiker said. "So, we see a tremendous opportunity to help attract more broadcast stations in the future.."

The result of HipCricket's partnership with Enticent is a fully integrated mobile marketing and customer loyalty service that lets broadcasters generate a database of listeners who have opted-in to receive communications from the station.

Leveraging this list, stations can then deliver services, such as weather updates, traffic reports and trivia contests, directly to each listener's mobile phone.

The more actions a listener takes, that is, the more traffic updates they receive and contests they enter, the more points they earn.

The partners claim that in the end this results in a stronger, more committed listener-base, while creating a high-value advertising platform.

"This partnership will allow us to better serve the common clients we have today and make both companies more compelling to media companies considering mobile or loyalty marketing programs," said Chris Bell, CEO of Enticent, Kennesaw, GA.

"This partnership also allows us to provide things like single-point of registration for consumers and the integration of points-based incentives for consumers who enroll in mobile marketing campaigns," he said.

The partners will use this new platform primarily in their sales efforts to help acquire new client stations and provide current partner stations with a unified solution.

"We will be talking about this partnership at upcoming trade shows, trade advertising and marketing collateral," Mr. Bell said. "In addition, we use direct mail quite a bit in our marketing efforts and we will be doing a piece on the partnership."

HipCricket produces interactive campaigns through SMS, mobile Web/WAP and mobile advertising and now connects brands with audiences via broadcast stations that are part of the first comprehensive Hispanic Mobile Marketing Network.

"The strategy behind the partnership between HipCricket and Enticent is to bring best-in-class vendors together to increase the value of our respective platforms for our shared clients," Mr. Bell said. "Enticent is the best-in-class provider of interactive loyalty programs and HipCricket is the best-in-class mobile marketing company."