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Procter & Gamble's Secret mobile ads deliver relevant content from social media sites

Procter & Gamble deodorant brand Secret is running mobile ads on teen publishing site The Chic Fashionista that peel back to reveal Facebook and Twitter content with an anti-bullying message.

The ads, which support of Secret?s ongoing Mean Stinks campaign against bullying, appear across mobile platforms on The Chic Fashionista mobile site. The idea is to give smartphone users a way to engage with a wider range of content from a brand that is related to what they are looking at on a mobile site.

?Mobile ads have become fairly simple with text and imagery, full-screen images, and layered in interactivity and rich media ? at this point there is not a lot of innovation,? said Ammiel Kamon, executive vice president and head of mobile for Kontera, New York.

?Mobile campaigns always perform best when it shows that the experience is relevant to the content they are appearing in,? he said. ?Showing full screen experiences targeted in a way that is very relevant to the content is key.

?The trend in the industry is to be relevant and to sell the story and to bring in related market content.?

Secret is using Kontera?s new PageLift dynamic content mobile ad unit for the campaign, which enables brands to take existing content or social assets and deliver them in a mobile ad to deliver a fuller, relevant experience for interested users.

A revealing look
P&G has been active in the mobile space for some time, leveraging mobile advertising, applications, QR codes and other tactics to engage with consumers.

The mobile ads for Secret incorporate related content from social media sites to support brand?s anti-bullying message. Additionally, users can follow Secret on Facebook or Twitter from the ads.

A pulled back corner on the ad lets users know they can simply drag and lift or ?peel? the original mobile content to reveal more information.

For mobile, the key is not placing an ad in a relevant place but in figuring out how the ad can tell a story and connect with what consumers care about, per Mr. Kamon. One way to do this is to bring in content that is outside mobile if it is related to what the mobile users is engaging with.

For example, a hair care brand could use a PageLift ad to show hairstyling tips.

?Ads shouldn?t be convoluted or hard to understand,? Mr. Kamon said. "Most of have a smartphone and would rather that a brand connect with us in a relevant way that adds value.?

Cross-platform approach
The ad unit works in a way similar to how iPad users can lift up their calendar to change their settings.

To deliver the ads, Kontera had to build a platform for related content that goes across devices in mobile, a way to curate the brand-related content and social content for the experience and a way to show the related content in a way that would engage consumer, such as by enabling them to peel back a page.

Kontera?s ads are supported on both Android and iOS platforms and have access to more than 4,000 publishers.

?Apple built that corner lifting up feature using hardware only available on iOS,? Mr. Kamon said.

?We built the same capability to go across platforms using HTML5 from a Web browser,? he said. ?This speaks to the power of phones these days.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York