Mobile Inc » Mobile Marketing

MINI Launch Mobile Geolocation Multiplayer Reality Game With Great Incentive

Murat — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:36:11 +0000

Brilliant idea from MINI, part of a campaign called MINI Getaway Stockholm 2010.

The concept is that iPhone users download the app and hunt a virtual MINI in the city, if you get 50 metres to the car, it becomes yours. BUT anyone else who gets within 50 metres to you once you have it, they takes it from you.

Cue people running around the city trying to get away from each other.

The person who has the virtual car by the end of the week wins a real MINI!

If this competition comes to the UK I’m going to go hide in the woods until I win the car.

By the way, the agency Jung von Matt is claiming this is the world’s first geolocation multiplayer reality game, I don’t think that’s true.

Campaign site: http://www.minigetawaystockholm.com/

[Via The Planning Lab]

A Closer Look At The D&AD Mobile Marketing Nominations

Murat — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:34:27 +0000

It’s that time of year again – the nominations for the D&AD Awards 2010 have just been announced for the mobile marketing category.

If you don’t already know, the D&AD Awards are a bit like the creative industry equivalent of the Oscars or something, they’ve been around since 1963 and it’s seen as a pretty big deal in the advertising world.

HOWEVER, there is a growing consensus in the mobile agencies I’ve been speaking to that these awards are a pile of shit, mostly due to the methods of judging and the relationships that already seem to be in place by the people who make decisions. But it’s always interesting to see what’s out there, lots of stuff goes under the radar sometimes and it’s a good chance to catch up.

My fav entries have always been those that mix innovation, reach and results, it’s one thing to develop amazing mobile tech that works on 2 phones but it’s truly epic when you can create something a bit special that works on all handsets and gets people engaging.

This year there’s the emergence of another mobile category, Mobile Applications. It’s a bit of a strange one because many mobile marketing campaigns use applications…so where do they sit? In Mobile Marketing or Mobile Applications? There is already one example below which is the IBM Seer Wimbledon app, which features in the Mobile Marketing category. Why isn’t it in apps?

There are two types of award:

In-Book - This means that the work will be published in the D&AD annual and is the equivalent of a bronze medal.

Nominated – This is work that is considered worthy of the Yellow Pencil award and is the equivalent to a silver medal. Truly outstanding work is award the Black Pencil, which as you may have guessed is the Gold Medal.

Unfortunately the list of nominations for the mobile marketing category doesn’t actually have any decent info about the projects, so I though I’d do us all a favour and cover them.

Title: Red Flag
Client: The North Face
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, Shanghai
Nation: China
Award: In Book

Outdoor clothing brand The North Face launched an integrated online and mobile campaign encouraging people to go out and explore new places whatever the weather.

Consumers in China and Bejing were given the challenge of planting a ‘red flag’ in each and every new place explored over the course of 18 days.

Participants used SMS to mark their location, this information was fed back into the campaign mini-site which included a map of challengers and up-to-date red flags.

The results were impressive, over 650,000 red flags had been planted by consumers in just 18 days.

Comment: My key take-out from this campaign is the SMS call-to-action which automatically provides the user location when they text-in. The most obvious benefit is that every phone is capable of taking part in the campaign and providing its location, without the need for GPS chips, applications or over hyped services like Foursquare. This information can then ultilised in a number of creative ways and mashed up with online services such as maps, social networks etc.

It’s actually quite an underused feature in mobile marketing, I hardly see campaigns utilise LBS SMS but it’s a perfect solution for allowing the user to provide their location without typing it in, they just fire off a normal text and the mobile operator passes their coordinates onto the brand. The main disadvantage is that the location provided by the operator isn’t as accurate as GPS but that isn’t always important.

Title: iidacalling
Client: iida
Agency: ground
Nation: Japan
Award: In Book

Iida is a new handset brand in Japan that caters more towards consumers who are more concerned with style rather than feature heavy mobiles. Iida wanted to target this audience with an interactive, innovative promotion that engaged consumers with the focus around ‘the ability to call’.

A mobile music generator called ‘iida calling’ was developed to allow consumers to create ringtones using their voice. This was then mixed with a famous DJ track and converted to a ringtone for the users to download as well as appearing on the main website. Each track was given a unique QR Code ‘sleeve’ and could be embedded and shared across the web and print, allowing others to download your mix by taking a picture of it.

The website was seriously engaging, the amount of content created by consumers and the way it was visualised was mesmerising. It was just a sea of on-screen CD sleeves representing thousands of ringtones, with each sounding different when you clicked play.

Within 2 weeks 18,000 tracks were generated and visits to the mobile and PC sites surpassed 2 million.

Comment: The first post I ever wrote on this blog was actually about this great integrated campaign. Even though the site was completely in Japanese it was still loads of fun to navigate and interact with the amazing visuals and music, I visited it several times over a few months because it was so cheery, surely a good sign when you don’t understand a thing on the site.

The mobile integration was outstanding, the way users created their custom track using a simple phone call was genius. Then of course you have the viral part of the campaign with users spreading tracks across blogs and social network. Win!

Title: Happy Birthday Download for Children
Client: UNICEF
Agency: HAKUHODO Inc
Nation: Japan
Award: In Book

Happy Birthday Download for Children is a charity project organised by the Japanese wing of Unicef in conjunction with musicians, recording companies and music retailers. The campaign featured a special mobile site were visitors could download a version of ‘Happy Birthday To You’ for a donation of 105 Yen.

Everyday a different famous Japanese artist is featured performing ‘Happy Birthday’ for the user to download.

The aim of the campaign is to help more children celebrate birthdays by reducing child mortality. Six million children never even reach their first birthday.

You can visit the online site here.

Comment: Obviously any charity work is commendable, however from what I can see from watching the videos and reading press releases, this isn’t exactly pushing any boundaries in mobile and makes me question if it should be in the award book. Isn’t this just a Mp3 download that changes everyday?

Would be great to have the rationale why this got ‘In Book’ because I’ve felt that comparing this to past campaigns such as the ‘Voices’ United Nations talking posters, it doesn’t really stand up in terms of innovation and driving the message home.

Title: IBM Seer
Client: IBM
Agency: OgilvyOne Worldwide
Nation: United Kingdom
Award: In Book

The Wimbledon Seer App is a Android G1 augmented reality application developed for the famous British annual tennis tournament. Seer is IBM’s equivelent of Layar, which is basically a service which aggregates information from external web sources and dislaies them on the screen in a funky augmented, super-imposed kinda way.

The Wimbledon Seer includes a locator function, match data, news feeds, information on refreshments, and can tell users if the lines at a particular cafe or restaurant are long.

IBM also launched another application which aggregated Twitter feeds, called Seer Aggregator. The app worked on most Java-enabled mobiles.

Comment: I’m a little bit like meh. This application only worked on the G1, I guess at the time augmented reality was new and hot shit so props for the innovation part but how many G1 users are there in the UK? Now tell me how many of those went to Wimbledon?

Title: The World’s Biggest Signpost
Client: Nokia
Agency: Farfar
Nation: Sweden
Award: Nomination

Swedish agency Farfar erected a 50 meter tall interactive stucture which points out people’s favourite locations around the world.

People could submit their favourite location via their phone using SMS or putting a pin on ‘the Good Things map’ online. Once the big arse arrow got your location it turns and points to that direction.

Comment: I like it, it’s kinda similar to the campaign me and Leigh Pearce come up with for exactly the same client and Nokia Maps product over 1 year ago. Our campaign was to use icons taken from the Nokia Maps product (such as a cup of coffee to indicate cafe) and make them into giant inflatable icons suspended in the air.

Link to the project here.

The Farfar campaign has a better mobile interaction as you can move and affect the sign post which is very cool.

The LG $10,000 Mobile Phone Raffle: How To Create A Buzz On The Cheap

Murat — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:23:58 +0000

There is a bit of a buzz going around the Internet with everyone trying to work out why the hell LG are willing to pay $10,000 for each of five specific Chocolate handsets that are about 3 years old.

LG put out newspaper and online ads (below) across 12 countries with the five handset serial numbers. The competition ends today. Once you send your Chocolate back LG will do some verification, then send you your dosh and a brand new LG phone too.

Conspiracy theories are ranging from ‘the phones contain real gold circuitry’ to ‘they have experimental processors accidentally inserted into the phones’.

LG aren’t helping matters by being deliberately tight lipped over the matter.

This has got to be one of the best marketing campaigns ever. Lets face it, LG won’t ever find those phones across the globe since most people have probably thrown the Chocolate in the bin by now. If the phones were really that important then why would the competition only last 2 weeks?

So at the cost of creating the newspaper ad, LG have themselves some pretty big exposure on all the top blogs and forums. It’s just so simple.

I even read one commenter saying that if they knew a phone had the potential to be a winning lottery ticket it would affect there purchase choice. Something for manufacturers to think about.

Brilliant stuff.

This Could Be Big – Coca-Cola Gives 50p Mobile Credit With Every Purchase

Murat — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:34:57 +0000

Coca-Cola is about to give away 50p worth of mobile calling credit with every purchase of a Coke product including Dr Pepper, Sprite and Fanta.

The promotion is obviously aimed at teenagers and allows the purchaser to redeem credit (PAYG and contract!) using a code on the www.gimmecredit.co.uk website. 32 million promotional packs will be available in stores from the 1st August. It will also be supported by TV and outdoor campaigns

I really think this campaign could be one of the most interesting case studies in mobile this year. I’m glad that Coca-Cola are supporting it with TV and outdoor too, it’s not often you see this happening with mobile campaigns. Even the packaging on the drinks has been tweaked so consumers can identify the packs more easily.

If this is successful we will no doubt see more companies looking to attract the youth market with free calling credit offers.

In focus groups for mobile advertising the question is often asked “What would you expect in return for receiving mobile advertising” and free calling credit always gets a positive response. This is the same business model as Blyk of course but now it’s being applied to selling soft drinks.

Coca-Cola has done deals with all the major networks to get this going, they probably purchased a big lump of credit at a massive discount from the operators.

I’m Eagerly awaiting the outcome of this one.

Yahoo! 'Brilliant Bus Views' MMS Campaign

Murat — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:43:13 +0000

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..

I Love Nike’s Mobile Marketing

Murat — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:58:04 +0000

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:

Nike Photo iD – Customise Footwear Via MMS

This idea was just simply delicious. You take a picture of something you like the look of on your phone, send it to a number as a picture message, then you get back the link to your shoe, completely customised using the colours extracted from the photo!

Just like the billboard campaign, you can then download it as a wallpaper or go on and purchase the shoe.

It’s a shame such a good idea didn’t get promoted more, I would have like to have seen this as part of a print, outdoor or TV campaign. This is another mobile execution where pratically every handset is compatible. Check out the Youtube promo video below.

This campaign deservedly picked up a number of awards, including IMA and MMA.

The agency behind this was AKQA and the picture recognition technology by Mobile Aquity

Nike Zoom China – Bluetooth Stopwatch

Another award winner, this time using Bluetooth.

Bluetooth enabled billboard ads appeared in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, as passersby approached they receieved a message telling them to run to the nearest Nike store as fast as possible.

A virtual stopwatch is activated the moment the person receieves the message, once they get to the store with their mobile the time is stopped. Everyday the store gave away a pair of running shoes to the fastest person, their name also appeared on the billboard the next day

The campaign stats are pretty immense for something running 3 weeks.

Across three cities in three weeks: 250 000 Bluetooth messages delivered, 15 000 participants and 63 pairs of Nike Zoom shoes awarded, 1.7 billion online impressions, 19 million print impressions and 17 million OOH target audience impressions.

15,000 participants! To put that in perspective it’s around roughly half of the London Marthaton. Check out the crazy video of the campaign below.

Credit goes to agency Mindshare.

Nike T90 - Augmented Reality Treasure Hunt In Hong Kong

To promote the launch of Nike’s T90 boot amongst teens during the Euro 2008 period, a series of black and white markers were posted in Nike stores, subway stations and magazines throughout Hong Kong.

Once you find a marker you text in the keyword on it to download a special Nike ‘Augmented Reality‘ application. After you load the app and point your phone camera at the code it becomes a virtual 3d T90 boot and ball which rotates as you move your phone around it. Within the 3d graphic is a special code which users text in to continue the hunt and also be entered into a sweeps stake for Nike merchandise.

This is slighly more complicated than the others but it works because of the target market in Hong Kong.

The agency behind this goodness is The Hyperfactory.

Click here for the video.

Nike WAP and iPhone Apps & Sites

Nike have launched a whole host of lovely looking WAP and iPhone sites which focus around various campaigns or products, including dedicated Air Force 1 and Nike Zoom sites.

Some of the functionality is far and beyond what you normally get with mobile sites such as 200+ sports video and 800+ product profiles.

Check them out here.

In October they also launched the Nike ID iPhone application, check out the video below:

It’s hard to pick a favourite but I’m going to have to go with the Times Square billboard because of the sheer scale and mass handset reach. Whats yours?