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Fashion brand Artificial Flavor offers mobile deals

Men's lifestyle clothing collection Artificial Flavor has turned to mobile marketing to offer discounts via SMS.

Artificial Flavor tapped Mobile Spinach for the mobile initiative. The company wanted to increase their Web traffic and brand awareness, as well as convert sales. Artificial Flavor had existing reactive campaigns that Mobile Spinach pushed out to people that signed up to hear about fashion.

"Aflavor wanted a way to reach the right people -- people that were actually interested in men's clothing instead of casting a huge un-targeted net," said John Vitti, cofounder/vice president of sales and marketing for Mobile Spinach, San Francisco. "They read about mobile and how it is more targeted for businesses so they wanted to give it a try.

"We knew that Aflavor spent a lot of money and time with PPC and SEO and didn't see a return," he said.

Being a smaller brand with a primary focus on the California market, a wired Web presence wasn't sufficient to raise awareness

"Aflavor is a small brand so who is going to 'search' for them?" Mr. Vitti said. "They are not a site like Zappos that has a lot of products either, so it has to be very specific.

"So we just paired them with interested people that were not searching for it but were wanting to get deals and information about men's clothing," he said.

Artificial Flavor's target demographic is consumers in their late 20s to late 40s. Eighty percent of their consumers are men.

Artificial Flavor has its own online destination and has clothing products in retail stores worldwide such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Fred Segal and Urban Outfitters.

Mobile Spinach asked them what their goals were and tapped into their influencers, which the company calls "Tastemakers."

Artificial Flavor turned to mobile to distribute time-sensitive deals to create a buzz and generate sales.

Mobile Spinach pushed out targeted, timely, relevant alerts to its members that signed up with the company to get deals on fashion.

In one measured week, Artificial Flavor had an increase in traffic of 30 percent and Mobile Spinach claims that it drove an additional $22,000 in revenue for the company.

In addition, Artificial Flavor's marketing outreach tactics include print advertising, Facebook, Twitter, a blog, promotions, tradeshows, trunk shows and other in-store events.

Membership in Mobile Spinach is free and revenue is generated through the merchant advertisers that partner with the company to serve "Spinach Alerts" -- ads -- to self-selected parties interested in receiving these messages in the form of discounts, deals and exclusive invites.

Mobile Spinach's goal is to provide a flexible, scalable and cost-efficient advertising service that bridges the price gap between traditional media an Internet advertising using the mobile channel to provide its advertisers with exposure to a unique platform of self-selected consumer interest groups.

Mobile Spinach targets small-to-medium size businesses in the U.S.

The business verticals the company serves are consumer lifestyle-focused, such as restaurants, bars, shopping, personal care services, hotels, travel and leisure. These verticals spend upwards of 10 percent of their sales on advertising.

Launched in San Francisco and now active in Los Angeles, New York City, Boston and Miami, Mobile Spinach provides its members with exclusive discounts, deal and passes for restaurants, hotels, clubs, spas, galleries and more in their city, free via text messages.

Tastemakers serve as on-the-ground experts in their niches of choice -- foodies, club hoppers, art enthusiasts, etc. -- who seek out and secure these local partners and provide these special deals -- Spinach Alerts -- to members.

Members have already enjoyed deals such as half-price tickets to Carnegie Hall, discounts on hotels including the Raleigh in Miami and San Francisco's Hotel Nikko, Golden Gate Park golf lessons and exclusive deals from spas and salons.

Mobile Spinach recently launched Facebook and Twitter accounts to help expand outreach.

"We get people to opt in by tapping our influencers, our Tastemakers, as they have an expansive network," Mr. Vitti said. "But our number-one driving force is the deals and content itself.

"Who doesn't like to get good deals and discounts on businesses they signed up for, when they want it?" he said. "So we have been finding out that friends are referring friends the most."