Tip for big brands in mobile: Extend existing campaigns

March 14, 2008

Tony Nethercutt is vice president of sales at AdMob

By Tony Nethercutt

The latest numbers from Nielsen Mobile paint a picture of the mobile Web that reveals it is not just the tech-savvy few that can be reached through mobile. With 80 percent of mobile subscribers using data in fourth quarter 2007, mobile is decidedly mass market. 

Mass market equals reach, and there is nothing that gets a big brand’s attention faster than the word “Reach.”  Now that we’re heading the right direction with the reach numbers and targeting capabilities that have been proven, mobile advertising for big brands is really coming into its own.

Brands and agencies are spending an increasing amount of time focused on creating a brand presence that is specific to mobile. This is certainly a fertile area to explore and holds great potential for the future, but creating an impactful mobile presence need not be divorced from all other existing campaign activities. 

Extending existing campaigns to mobile, or better yet, conceiving of a mobile component to an integrated campaign from the outset, is the best way to ensure a consistent brand presence and campaign across all forms of media and leverage existing assets.  I recommend this as the first step for a brand looking to develop its mobile presence.

When I was at DoubleClick in the early days of interactive advertising, I saw a similar pattern as big brands began spending and experimenting online. 

The most effective first step in online then, as it is now in mobile, was to extend an existing campaign to a new medium.  Once a brand is familiar with mobile, building a standalone campaign for mobile can be exciting. But unfamiliarity with the space should not prevent big brands from getting into mobile today by extending their existing campaigns.

The best mobile campaigns we have seen recently for big brands capture the essence of the overarching campaign while incorporating functionality that is uniquely suited to mobile. 

An example of a campaign that was seamlessly extended to mobile is the recent Adidas “Basketball is a Brotherhood” campaign.  The integrated campaign included media such as print, television, online, in-store and mobile components, and emphasized the team culture of basketball. 

Adidas, a sportswear giant, worked with the agencies Carat and Isobar, and they conceived of mobile elements from the beginning of the campaign. 

For example, users could opt-in to receive SMS text messages and calls from professional basketball player Kevin Garnett, one of the NBA players who were sponsored as part of the campaign.  Full disclosure: AdMob sold the mobile media. 

The Adidas campaign showcases the interactive potential of branded mobile sites.  Adidas placed text link ads and banner ads on the AdMob network directing users to their mobile site where users could browse and discover products, download content and Click-2-Call Kevin Garnett.

Users could also get a customizable voicemail recorded by Kevin Garnett automatically configured to their phone. Click-2-Call and voicemail features enabled users to interact with the NBA players featured in the campaign and highlighted functionality that is uniquely suited for mobile. 

Without getting too deep into the specifics, the agency says that mobile out-performed all other media for driving opt-ins to the campaign. 

Also, the fact that 18 percent of those who used the Click-2-Call campaign called back again a second time suggests a viral nature of this campaign, as users may have been showing off the feature to their peers.

The key point to remember is that an advertiser can stick to the same goals it has in online and other media and extend them to mobile.  A direct response advertiser can implement direct response campaigns in mobile.  A lead generation-focused advertiser can make use of information capture functionality to generate leads.

If an advertiser is used to showing brand building videos online and on TV, it can show video on mobile that customers can watch anytime, no matter where they are. 

Brand impact studies from InsightExpress, Dynamic Logic and Factor TG are becoming increasing common in mobile. The results of their studies demonstrate that mobile advertising has a positive impact on key brand metrics.

My top recommendation to brands and their agencies is extending campaigns to mobile while taking advantage of the unique functionality that mobile offers. It is also the top recommendation of the Mobile Marketing Association. Reach your customers where they are spending time in increasingly larger numbers: the mobile Web.

Next time: Ad units and pricing

Tony Nethercutt is vice president of sales at mobile ad network AdMob, San Mateo, CA. Reach him at .