When I first started out working in mobile the landscape was completely different to how it is today, there were no iPhones or Android handsets, GPS was just a twinkle in someone’s eye in Finland and about 5 people had 3G. This meant you were pretty much limited to the basics, SMS, MMS, WAP, Voice and Java apps. Although that might sound pretty crap it the good thing about it was that it taught you to think from the ground up and be creative with the features that nearly every single phone has today.
That’s why I’ve got much love for campaigns like the Nike ID MMS ‘footwear customisation’, everyone can get involved no matter what phone, the reach is immense (MMS handset penetration is over 95% in places like the UK).
I was very fortunate to work on the Vodafone account at Nokia Interactive (formerly Enpocket) which gave me access to unlimited amounts of MMS to test, innovate and just basically do cool stuff. We sent MMS communications to over 2 million customers each month (some examples in my portfolio) and it’s a great channel if done right, not just for ‘push’ advertising but ‘pull’ too.
Because we were doing up to 5 campaigns a week and really busy with deadlines etc, you tend to forget the significance of your work. And because we were sandwiched between two global mega-companies there were rarely any press releases or case studies. It’s a shame because we had campaigns that got triple figure response rates and uplift in services that no one talked about. If I would have had a blog back then it would literally have about 150 campaigns by now, however here is one I can share without any restraints.
The following campaign for Vodafone was created by the fantastic creative team at Nokia Interactive (who have now formed the mobile agency Movement London). Bit gutted I didn’t get to work on this one as I had already moved to user experience but it’s definitely one of my favourite campaigns to leave the company.
Vodafone ran their own set of concerts exclusively for customers called Vodafone TBA. We often did a large amount of activity at the events (ticketing, Bluetooth, etc) and built anticipation beforehand using messaging. Check out the video:
Check out this campaign for the pension company AMF which went live last year. Its aim was to encourage young people to start thinking about their pensions sooner rather than later.
How did they manage to do this? By ‘ageing’ your face of course!
Outdoor billboards and TV adverts prompted the viewer to send a picture of themselves via MMS to a shortcode. A few minutes later the sender receives a picture of their face showing how they would look if they were 70 years old.
Some outdoor ads were made using lenticular printing which allows the image of a young man to morph as you move your viewing angle.
What do you get when you take the Schiesser Bluetooth underwear campaign and use SMS instead? You get this ad from Axe deodorant (or Lynx if you’re in the UK). Click to enlarge.
The print ad displays a picture of a model looking like she could be naked and a call to action. The message says “To complete this ad send Axe to 2345 after 9pm”, once you send the text you get a picture message (MMS) back with the rest of the ad showing the model in her underwear. Great, so you paid 11p to basically look at a Marks & Spencer’s advert. Read More
This little random Yahoo! campaign caught my eye the other day on the bus to Oxford Street.
Yahoo! ads seem to be appearing on various bus routes in London with the call to action of “What do you see?” Here’s the rest:
Share your brilliant view with others.. it’s easy! MMS your brilliant photo taken from this bus to 07786 201 809 and you could win a Brilliant Thing!
You can see loads of others at www.brilliantbusviews.co.uk. Enjoy the ride.
‘What do you see?’ floor stickers have also been placed around London telling people to share the view with others and take a picture from that spot. The spots have a keyword that the user needs to include with the MMS such as ‘SPOT060′ allowing Yahoo! to identify where in London the picture has been taken.
Once you send in a picture it turns up on the Brilliant Bus Views Flickr page (MMS is a feature of Flickr), you can also use E-mail or add it to the Flickr group. About 251 photos have been uploaded so far some are quite cool, the best pictures seem to end up on the Aren’t Things Brilliant blog.
I can’t find anything about this campaign online either, I’m assuming it’s just a mini brand awareness campaign? I like what they have done with the floor markers over London and the unique keywords.
Wonder what the brilliant prize is?
In this spirit of the campaign I decided to take a picture from my view on the bus..
Who said MMS is dead? First the iPhone gets MMS and now according to a report by Juniper Research, revenue from MMS advertising is going to soar to 8.7bn over the next five years with a 94% growth rate.
The report, ‘Mobile Messaging & IP Evolution’, found that the Far East & China would lead the global ad-funded MMS market by a considerable margin, followed by North America and Western Europe.
Personally I think Europe is leading the way with MMS ads especially in the UK. The work I’ve done with Vodafone over the past 3 years was heavily focused on targeted MMS ads to millions of customers every year. Check out examples here and here. Also companies like Blyk and 3 are doing a fair amount of MMS ads to customers.
Ever since I first got involved with MMS I’ve been excited by the huge potential. Messages can contain video, audio, images and text, all seamlessly sent to the customer with no cost incurred to them (in the UK at least). Far more engaging than SMS if done correctly. Read More
Updated 06/10/09 : I’ve added the videos for each campaign
You have got to hand it to Nike and their agencies, time after time they produce some really innovative and engaging mobile marketing campaigns.
It seems like Nike totally trusts its agencies and lets the mobile experts there do what they do best. Campaigns have mobile at the center rather than a text call to action awkwardly shoe horned in at the end, because of this you get some fantastic, groundbreaking work.
Here are my favourite picks:
Nike iD Interactive Billboard – Times Square, New York
Nike launched a 23-story interactive billboard in times Square displaying customisable footwear from the Nike iD range.
You dial the number that appears on the billboard and use your phones keypad to start customising the on-screen shoe….in real time! You then get sent a text message with a link to download a wallpaper of your design or even buy it.
The beautiful thing about this is that it works on every phone, no apps, no software, just a simple phonecall. Brilliant.
Check out the larger image here or the video below:
