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Buick to raise awareness of scholarship program via Verizon iPhone ads

General Motors Co.-owned Buick is relying on mobile advertising via Apple?s iPhone for Verizon Wireless to generate buzz around its Buick Achievers Scholarship Program.

Buick partnered with Millennial Media to increase public awareness of new GM Foundation-funded scholarship program. The partnership was launched with support from GM?s media agency of record, Starcom USA.

?Buick and the GM Foundation are launching the $4.5-million per year Buick Achievers Scholarship Program designed to inspire, celebrate and enable human achievement by recognizing and rewarding 1,100 college-bound students each year,? said Nick Richards, a spokesman for Buick, Detroit, MI.

?The objective was to reach the broadest distribution of potential scholarship candidates between launch of the scholarship and the application deadline of March 31," he said.

The program
Buick Achievers is a GM Foundation-funded scholarship program designed to recognize and reward 1,100 students who demonstrate excellence in both the community and the classroom.

As one of the nation?s largest scholarship programs, it will provide 100 outstanding students who major in the sciences, technology, engineering, mathematics, marketing, business administration or other related fields with up to $25,000 a year, for up to four years. 

The program will also provide 1,000 students with $2,000 scholarships, renewable for up to four years. 
 
Mobile advertising
To launch the new scholarship program, Buick will promote Buick Achievers via a two week advertising campaign across Millennial Media?s network of mobile Web sites and applications on the Verizon iPhone. 

The campaign is running exclusively on hundreds of Millennial Media?s sites and apps, including Word With Friends, Accuweather, Flightview, CBS, AOL, Mashable, Pandora People, PhotoBucket, Travel Channel and Pro Football Weekly.

?Doug Reid, an industry analyst who tracks Apple from Stifel Nicolaus, estimates that Verizon Wireless will sell approximately 11 million iPhones in 2011,? Mr. Richards said. ?Pre-orders for the Verizon Wireless iPhone sold out in one day, according to the company. 

?Mobile is only one of the multiple methods we are using to drive this awareness program,? he said.   ?However, as one of the first advertisers we'll reach an extremely large national audience who is new to the device on the Verizon network.?

Final take
Here is a demo of the campaign.
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