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Kodak mobile advertising campaign sees 1.7 percent CTR

Kodak executives wanted to increase the customer base of the brand's Kodak Express photo processing outlets in India, so they turned to mobile advertising.

The company conducted a month-long mobile advertising campaign based on an opt-in survey and a call-to-action to visit its Kodak Express outlets, which was powered by BuzzCity. To incentivize participation, Kodak offered prizes to those who entered such as a 2GB iPod Nano or a 1GB memory card.

"The mobile campaign was a sort of experiment -- promoting Kodak to people with camera phones," said KF Lai, CEO of BuzzCity, Singapore. "The goals were to increase footfalls to the Kodak Express outlets in India and to consolidate user profile and behavior understanding from Kodak Express users."

Kodak is a leading global provider of conventional, digital and blended photo print production environments, with a brand that is recognized worldwide.

Faced with a crisis of epic proportions -- the death of film and the rise of digital photography -- Kodak has shifted its strategy to mobile (see story).

Kodak Express outlets, located in cities worldwide, are a one-stop destination for photo printing, products and accessories, as well as photo customization and personalization.

Kodak executives, seeking ways to both increase foot traffic to stores in India and gather and consolidate user profile and preference information from Kodak Express customers, decided that a mobile advertising campaign would be the best option for getting maximum results for their ad spend.

The goals of the mobile campaign were to create awareness of Kodak Express, drive foot traffic and gather information about its customers' desires and preferences via the survey.

Kodak ran both text and banner advertisements and target its campaign broadly to men and women between 15 and 40 years-of-age throughout India, with no specific city or regional targeting.

For its mobile ads, Kodak went with simple, concise messages: "Kodak Express Shoot It Win It!" and "Print them now. Win them now!"

As an incentive for completing the survey, the company devised a contest that required users to make 50 prints at a Kodak Express outlet from a digital camera or camera phone.

Once potential customers completed the survey, they were entered into a drawing to win a 2GB iPod Nano or a 1GB memory card.

In order to complete their contest entries, they were prompted to enter their name, mobile number and camera capacity.

They were then redirected to the nearest Kodak Express outlet to complete the process by ordering the 50 prints.

The results were impressive, according to BuzzCity, and serve as an example of how creative, targeted mobile advertising can give companies a cost-effective boost to their sales and marketing efforts.

In one month, the campaign generated 11 million visits to the survey landing page, with a click through rate of 1.7 percent.

But beyond the numbers, Kodak gathered important information for future interaction with its customers through the survey component.

The Kodak team also gathered mobile numbers it could use for future SMS marketing, and was able to gather information about its customers' camera capacities and functionality so it could better serve them in the future.

The advantages of mobile for the campaign were clear. Usage of the Internet on mobile phones is huge in India.

At the end of last year, there were more than 346 million Indian wireless subscribers and the market was growing by approximately 10 million new subscribers per month.

Much of the growth of the mobile Internet in India follows a trend we have seen in many countries throughout the world, where the mobile Web is used as a primary Internet connection by people who otherwise do not have access to a PC at home.

That said, mobile advertising has several other significant attributes that made it an advantageous choice for Kodak.

Most importantly, mobile is a more active medium than other options, according to BuzzCity.

Even though many people use the mobile Internet while at home or work, mobile still has perhaps the strongest call-to-action component of any type of advertising available, because it makes information literally accessible at the touch of a button, significantly narrowing the gap between the marketing message and action on the part of the consumer.

This attribute fit perfectly with Kodak's desire to increase traffic to its Kodak Express stores.

To facilitate its mobile campaign, Kodak turned BuzzCity and its Global Mobile Advertising Network.

In addition to providing a platform, BuzzCity helped devise a strategy that allowed Kodak to effectively execute the campaign and get the most out of its budget.

Particularly important to Kodak was the fact that the BuzzCity network is global, and the company has experience serving the Indian market.

In fact, the Indian market is currently No. 2 in total mobile advertising page views generated though the BuzzCity network.

Kodak had the ability to target ads by geography, makes and capabilities of handsets, as well as more specific demographics like age and interests.

Kodak decided to target mobile Internet users in the "Community, Entertainment and Lifestyle," "Information," "Mobile Content (news and related content)" and "Search/Portal Services" categories.

Additionally, the BuzzCity network allowed Kodak to use different types of mobile ads and implement a mobile survey that would allow it to gather information from consumers.

Kodak wanted to attract a broad range of potential customers, which was reflected by its tactical approach to the campaign.

There were a couple of distinct takeaways from the campaign that advertisers can take to heart.

The first is that engaging potential customers in a multi-faceted mobile marketing experience is essential for strong results, according to BuzzCity.

In this case, contact with the Kodak brand started with the banner ad, which redirected customers to a landing page that let them take the survey, enter the contest, prompted them to find the nearest Kodak Express outlet from the "store locator" and finally encouraged mobile Web users to become customers -- thus completing the cycle of customer engagement.

BuzzCity worked with Kodak's agency, Ogilvy India, to create the Kodak Express store locator.

The second lesson is comparatively simple but no less important: Use clear, straight-forward marketing messages -- a particularly important piece to mobile marketing campaigns because of the inherent limitations of the screen size.

The results validate the strength of mobile advertising's value proposition and its potential, if well executed, to help brands achieve an unprecedented level of bang for the advertising buck, according to BuzzCity.

"Kodak did not have a WAP site, but needed to connect with camera-phone users who surfed the mobile Web, in order to consolidate user profile and behavior understanding from the users on Kodak Express," Mr. Lai said. "We helped them figure out a way to do this."