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Axe, Samsung, Westin, PowerAde use mobile to advance print ads

Axe, Samsung, Westin and PowerAde are dissatisfied with the lack of interactivity and measurable metrics associated with print campaigns.

That's precisely why these big brands have bought ad space from Men's Health, a men's lifestyle magazine brand that has tapped mobile marketing services firm SnapTell to create an interactive advertising magazine that will feature enabled ads for readers.

"Men's Health is using SnapTell's solution to render interactivity to all the advertisements in their July/August double issue," said G.D. Ramkumar, chief technology officer at SnapTell, New York. "The strategy is to offer advertisers an opportunity to make their print ads in Men's Health interactive with minimal additional effort and with an added opportunity to create compelling custom campaigns.

"Advertisers have the choice of creating a custom campaign that offers readers a special response and incentive, or with minimal effort, redirect readers to an existing mobile Web site," he said.

Men's Health's July/August summer issue will hit newsstands June 24 and will allow readers to snap a photo of any advertisement in the issue with their mobile phone or photo-enabled mobile device to send to SnapTell. The consumer will then receive an immediate promotional bounce-back with all of the product information.

The SnapTell technology is compatible with all mobile phones and does not require special software for downloading advertiser images.

SnapTell is an image-recognition-based mobile marketing company. Its Snap.Send.Get techology converts camera phones into opt-in mobile marketing devices.

"The challenge that this program addresses is the lack of interactivity and the lack of measurable metrics associated with print campaigns," Mr. Ramkumar said.

"With the SnapTell program, Men's Health advertisers can track reader response to their advertising," he said. "[The] SnapTell platform offers real-time analytics broken down by the advertisement, geography, area code, time and several other attributes."