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Fox?s Sleepy Hollow promoted in Waze app for Halloween scares

Fox Broadcasting Company?s television show Sleepy Hollow is incorporating a character?s creepy voice in the community-based traffic and navigation application Waze to tap mobile creativity and awareness during Halloween.

Users can activate the voice by accessing their language settings in their smartphones. This campaign activates a mobile involvement for the show and entices Waze users to check it out on Fox.

"As more consumers rely on mobile devices as their primary portals to the Internet and their daily lives, it's critical we get creative and help brands through this transition,? said Julie Mossler, head of global communications and creative strategy at Waze, New York. ?Mobile opportunities are so much greater than the traditional banner ad."

Creativity that spooks
For Halloween, Waze introduced the Haunted Waze map, filled with ghost road goodies and haunted locations. Wazers can help de-haunt the map by adding real places to the Waze map, which is an aim to promote the app's new Places photo and content initiative that debuted in version 3.9. Every place added helps reduce the amount of haunted places, and every real place equals points.

Users can also help clean the map by trumping ghosts that interfere in their routes.

The newest and limited-time voice command to help direct Wazers is Ichabod Crane from Fox's Sleepy Hollow TV show. To use this feature, users simply update the app on their phones. They can go to Settings, then Sound, and select ?English (U.S.) ? Ichabod? as their voice language. 


The next time Wazers need to use their carriage to get to their destination, the schoolmaster?s British accent will be heard and serves as a co-pilot during the voyage.

The campaign will run through Nov. 5 and is available to users in the U.S., Canada, U.N., Mexico and Japan.

Entertainment channeling mobile
Social networks such as Pinterest and Instagram are no longer the extent of platforms used for mobile campaigns. Entertainment corporations are thinking outside of the box to promote their films and shows.

For example, Universal Pictures is integrating its upcoming thriller Ouija with mobile application PicCollage to engage users in a photo-collage competition while driving awareness for the film. 

Partnering with mobile advertising company MediaSpike, PicCollage is enabling users with a sticker pack to participate in the competition. Ads for the film will also be visible on the platform, and users can click on the direct link to watch the movie trailer (see story).

Also, CW Television Network?s campaign promoting the premiere of ?The Flash? put on a burst of speed for mobile consumers as a large number of them played a game that followed a video ad and engaged with calls to action. 

Besides engaging with a rich-media end card that included a "Catch The Flash" mini-game following a video ad, users were invited to tap as fast as they could to catch The Flash on the screen and could tap to watch longer-form video from the show and add the inaugural episode?s data and time to the calendar on their mobile device. The AdColony-engineered campaign, which averaged an overall engagement rate of nearly 40 percent, underscores the importance of developing mobile-first executions and targeting them accurately (see story).

Waze believes it offers a unique experience for its partners.

"Entertainment brands are lining up to work with Waze because consumers genuinely love these promotions,? Ms. Mossler said. ?Waze usage increases every time we bring some Hollywood to the app. 

?Thanks to these partnerships, partners from Sleepy Hollow to Brooklyn Nine Nine engage with passengers and drivers in a way that doesn't feel like advertising, and Waze is able to add some fun to the commute while keeping drivers' eyes on the road,? she said. ?It's a win for everyone."

Final Take
Caitlyn Bohannon is an editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York