STAR TV runs Heroes mobile campaign in Asia

By Dan Butcher

March 31, 2009

The Heroes mobile site

For the third season of NBC's Heroes TV series, STAR TV has extended its promotion to Asia, targeting young and adult followers of the TV show who are also visible on social networks.

The TMS Way Ltd. developed a mobile site for the promotion with videos of the third-season episodes, galleries, plot synopses and profiles of Heroes characters. STAR TV has enabled polls and recommendations features, letting mobile consumers watch previews, recommend previews to friends for free via SMS and answer Heroes poll questions.

"The strategy of the campaign is to engage interaction with Asia's mobile audience and to measure responses through data generation and analysis," said Luida Cabatana, spokeswoman for the TMS Way, Hong Kong. "The campaign also aims to expose the show's sponsors to Asia's mobile audiences.

"NBC doesn't have any participation in the campaign, since STAR TV bought the show's rights for Asia and can promote the series following its own concept in the region," she said. "The TMS Way enables the mobile execution by delivering the campaign to 17 countries all over Asia."

In the U.S., Nissan and Sprint are both sponsors of NBC's Heroes.

An SMS link directs consumers to the Heroes mobile site

Satellite Television for the Asian Region, or STAR, is an Asian TV service owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

To reach its target audience, STAR TV is running a mobile rebound campaign with the goal of initiating a conversation with mobile audiences and gathering data and statistics from these mobile consumers.

The STAR TV campaign is running in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brueni Darussalam, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Maldives, Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Macau and Papua New Guinea, among others.

We can be Heroes - just for one day

Using the �Web to multimedia content on demand' service, the TMS Way created a Web-to-mobile widget and placed it on local versions of the Heroes Web site, where online audiences can enter their mobile phone numbers to receive a free SMS alert with a link redirecting consumers to the Heroes mobile site at http://www.m.tmsway.com/heroes/index.php.

To measure and analyze the campaign's impact to targeted audiences, the TMS Way provides a platform where STAR TV can access the campaign's data and statistics on poll answers, clicks per country, clicks per device used and the time the users spend connecting to the Heroes brand via mobile.

This self-service mobile platform is powered by TMS Factory, the TMS Way's mobile division.

The company's mobile platform is integrated with 1D and 2D barcode technology, TMS search and codes, and global SMS enabling the cross-media distribution of mobile offers across print, email, desktop/PC, the mobile Web and social networks.

STAR TV's Heroes campaign runs through Nov. 2009.

"Powered by TMS Factory, we provide the campaign's connection to all mobile operating systems, including the iPhone and Blackberry," Ms. Cabatana said. "We also provide our client Star TV the access to the campaign's statistics for them to analyze the data and to measure the results."

Although the campaign is currently running, initial data for the Heroes initiative show success, with hundreds of thousands of page views and thousands of poll answers submitted, according to the TMS Way.

Nokia's Symbian, Blackberry, Sony Ericsson and Apple's iPhone have achieved the highest click-through rates so far.

"In this campaign, mobile is the best way to hit the target demographic -- the young generation -- since they are visible in this personal media," Ms. Cabatana said. "The mobile device is capable of offering various viral promotions.

"This [campaign lets] Heroes fanatics carry a series of video clips on their mobile phones, or show and share clips with friends in less than three clicks," she said. "Plus, some social networks have integrated mobile functions on their platforms, and this [provides] chances for the campaign to circulate across the digital landscapes."