By Jeff Hasen

Neither the Arizona Cardinals nor mobile marketers showed much in the first half of the Super Bowl.

Their paths diverged after that -- the Cardinals stormed back, while mobile marketers, other than a few with a handful of promotions, didn't get into the game.

And that is a shame. According to Mobile Marketing Association statistics, 24 percent of consumers are very or somewhat likely to opt-in to relevant mobile offers.

Think of the potential numbers for a Super Bowl, with a domestic television audience that typically exceeds 40 million viewers.

Despite the bleak economy, 2009 should be a fertile year for mobile marketing.

In fact, the deepening recession may be the catalyst. Mobile's low cost, immediate measurement and the ability to easily build and re-market to mobile databases makes it extremely appealing in these lean times.

Last year's Super Bowl was a huge missed opportunity -- there was nary an advertisement that had any sort of mobile element (Budweiser was an exception).

This time, Super Bowl advertisers largely missed a golden opportunity to further engage via mobile with one of the world's largest captive audiences tied to their sets for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cardinals, Bruce Springsteen's halftime show and, yes, the commercials.

NBC and The Boss' record label, Columbia, absolutely missed a huge opportunity to tie in the game, the halftime show, Mr. Springsteen's 2009 tour (tickets go on sale this week) and the release of his new album "Working on a Dream."

Just think of how mobile could have tied it all so nicely together.

In the first half, NBC would tease the coming of a keyword and short code for viewers to enter to win front-row seats to a show on the tour and to receive, say, a special bonus or alternate song not available on Working on a Dream, simply for opting in to receive future messages.

NBC and Columbia would now have a huge database of sports fans and Springsteen-philes to which it could market future sports and music-related programming and related new artists.

How many singers or bands have been touted as "The Next Springsteen" in the past 30 years? This would be an excellent way to get the word out to a dedicated core of fans -- and it wouldn't have taken a separate $3 million advertising buy to pull it off.

All that said, Super Bowl XLIII wasn't a total bust for mobile marketers.

Two ads just prior to halftime -- one for a monster.com/NFL contest, another for the NFL and United Way -- included SMS-based "calls to action."

However, without any sort of advance publicity, and the fact that they were sandwiched between the end of the half and the halftime extravaganza, these sorts of text call-to-action ads are likely to be ignored. In fact, the text component came off as afterthoughts.

One campaign I did notice -- albeit peripherally, behind the action -- was some sort of in-stadium SMS campaign, that urged fans in attendance at Raymond James Stadium to text their location to a short code, perhaps for some sort of a giveaway.

From the smallest concert to the Super Bowl, onsite mobile marketing makes sense.

You have a captive audience looking for things to do to fill the downtime, particularly for periods of time that are too short to take a walk to the concourse -- like the brief interlude between The Boss' set and the start of the second half.

From all-you-can eat data plans to the ubiquity of the SMS format, Americans are ready to do more with their mobile devices.

Marketers have to justify every penny spent on programs to make certain they deliver quick, measurable results.

The time for mobile marketing is now -- and perhaps marketers will seize the opportunity with other major events -- the Oscars, the NCAA Final Four -- this year. They can't afford to miss any more opportunities such as the Super Bowl.

Jeff Hasen is chief marketing officer of HipCricket, a mobile marketing firm in Kirkland, WA. Reach him at