Tire-production giant Goodyear launched a mobile campaign to raise awareness in men, right in time for the winter.

The "Time For Winter Tires" promotional campaign ran in Poland during the last quarter of 2008, from Oct. 13-27. It was coordinated by Upgrade Interactive Marketing and included an SMS campaign and a mobile site.

"The target was male drivers aged 25-54, using mobile Internet," said Kazimierz Piekarz, CEO of Upgrade Interactive Marketing, Warsaw, Poland. "Or alternatively, men interested in purchasing winter tires of premium quality for their private cars."

Goodyear was founded in 1898 and today it is one of the largest tire companies in the world. Besides manufacturing tires for automobiles, Goodyear produces for trucks, SUVs, race cars, and airplanes.

Upgrade Interactive Marketing offers many services to companies including SMS and WAP sites. The company worked with Polkomtel and One-2-One for the Goodyear campaign.

Time For Winter Tires was marketed via a personalized SMS campaign sent out to over 80 thousand men.

The SMS contained and advertising message and WAP link to a mobile microsite.

The mobile site contained the terms of contest, a list of winners and product details.

"[The call to action] was encouraging potential customers to visit a mobile microsite," Mr. Piekarz said. "The message read: Pora na opony zimowe Goodyear. Do wygrania 15 kompletow opon i 15 telefonów. Pula nagrod 25.000 PLN! Wejdz na wap.gy.plus.pl.

"[The message is easily] translated into English: It is time for Goodyear winter tires. Fifteen sets of tires and 15 mobile phones worth 25000 PLN to win! Visit wap.gy.plus.pl," he said.

Mr. Piekarz said that during the 15-day campaign there were more than 2.2 million impressions recorded.

Mobile banners had a 3 percent click through rate while the SMS portion had 5.2 percent.

Goodyear is not the first to try and sell tires using mobile.

In April, a BMW Germany mobile campaign was deployed to sell more winter tires and is said to have achieved a 30 percent conversion rate.

BMW Germany wanted to remind its customers that snow tires are more of a necessity rather than luxury, especially during the winter in Germany. The luxury carmaker targeted owners of BMWs, urging them to visit a local dealership and buy a set of tires (see story).

The conversion rate for the Goodyear campaign reached 1.2 percent.

"We have been impressed with the high coversion rate - calculated as the relation of SMS registrations to the contest and a total number of visits to the mobile landing page," Mr. Piekarz said.