Unilever?s ice cream brand Magnum saw significant success in driving local traffic to a store in Ecuador through a mobile banner campaign that leveraged location and interactivity to enable users to invent their own ice cream bars and pick them up. 

The mobile-only campaign focused on a serving an interactive banner ad experience through smartphones in which users could become a part of the creation process and develop a product just for themselves. Magnum saw 14 percent in-store sales increase and claims to have doubled the world record of ice-cream bars sold in a store on a single day. 

"The success [of the campaign] was achieved due to two important things, a bold, creative and very attractive experience for Ecuadorean consumers, and the integration of all media such as TV, mobile, PR sponsorship, specifically for mobile, georeferenced webapp was key to drive traffic to the Magnum Pleasure Store," said Monica Albarracin, brand manager of ice cream at Unilever.

Magnum employed an innovative personal experience through mobile paired with geolocation technology to target younger consumers for its new Ecuador store, and the practice proved successful for the brand. Mobile users within the area of the new store in Ecuador were able to engage with a banner ad, which popped up in various platforms through smartphones near the location. 

While the advertising tool only appeared on mobile, Unilever took to a variety platforms to ramp up the campaign and ensure its success. 

The interactive advertisement showed itself to those within the area, and interested users entered their phone numbers and clicked continue to participate. The user was then taken through a series of steps to create their own ice cream bar. 

Consumers were given a choice of which type of chocolate and which topping they wanted along with its own name and cover. The ad prompted users to visit the new location upon completion to pick up their own design of ice cream bar.  

The banner ad allowed the team to work fast and convenient rather than developing an entire mobile application. The campaign saw significant success with more than 23,000 click-throughs from 2 million impressions, and an average CTR of 2.01 percent. 

Adsmovil is the creator and developer behind the campaign, and caught the attention of multiple organizations, winning awards such as Gold Smartie from the MMA and a FOMLA award. 

The mobile banner ad originally aired in July of 2014, but was expanded and relaunched this summer with a bigger budget in preceding last year's success. 

Unilever and Magnum take to mobile for unique advertising campaigns. 

Recently, fashion apparel brand BCBG Max Azria partnered with Magnum Ice Cream brand on a new clothing accessory designed to evoke the texture, look and scent of the frozen products while leveraging social media to generate buzz and boost summer sales for the item (see more). 

Also, Unilever was quick to partner with publishing brand Refinery29 for its recent Snapchat Discovery channel launch, tapping into the publisher?s audience to target millennials for the TreSemmé, Dove and Axe brands (see more). 

Mobile is proving to be an effective tool for Unilever and its various brands including Magnum. 

"Mobile is very important," Ms. Albarracin said. "Magnum is an impulse product so we need to connect with our consumer whenever he is on the go. 

"What a better way to do this than with Mobile," she said.