Whoever said you need a big screen to express a big idea? Mobile has emerged as the most versatile, personal, and targeted media and advertising channel. It's also proving to be one of the most innovative and creative.
Orange's Exposure 2 research among mobile users asked participants to rate traditional, digital broadcast and print media on a number of attributes. Mobile media was overwhelmingly viewed as the most personal and innovative medium, providing it with a unique place in the marketing mix. The results give us valuable insights into how brands can go about engaging consumers with the mobile channel. Mobile users are looking for campaigns that entice and excite them with clever interaction.
Mobile also provides a channel for us to express our own creativity. The fastest growth area for mobile usage is social networking: we're creating and sharing content, and spending more time updating our Facebook profiles on mobile (three times per day) than we do online (twice a day).
Today's advertisers have a rich palette of mobile formats to engage their customers. Banner ads - on and off portal - Bluetooth and search all provide targeted advertising opportunities. The industry has launched guidelines for creating ads which can be viewed across all handsets in circulation.
The revolution in mobile creativity has been mirrored by advances in handsets. Back in 2000, the first mobile sites were WML black and white text links which resolved on some GPRS handsets. By 2002, the first MMS ads were being developed, adding visual impact to marcomms with logos and images.
Programmers started experimenting with mobile web by 2004, initially with basic HTML sites, and then moved to XHTML two years later, enabling the resizing of assets and a 'made for mobile' experience. And Java applications became popular with creatives in 2008, coinciding with the iPhone's launch. What follows is a selection of highly creative mobile campaigns.
The iPhone has had a dramatic effect on mobile creativity, and found its way into the hands of our creative community. The cut-down Safari browser offers the most advanced mobile browsing experience, and although it accounts for just over 1% of handsets in the UK, 77% of iPhone users regularly browse the mobile web.
The iPhone provides a blank canvas for creatives to harness sight, sound, touch and motion and the handset's accelerometer (or gyroscope) allows the user to shake and tilt their iPhone rather than use the keypad. Features like this, the smaller screen and different browser call for 'made for mobile' sites, even for the iPhone, instead of trying to serve the main website.
iPhone apps, built using Apple's developer kit, achieved notoriety when Beattie McGuinness Bungay launched the award winning 'iPint' for Carling, downloadable from iTunes. To date over 25,000 different applications have been made, and downloaded 800 million times.
Recycle for London adapted its online recycling game with a mobile Java game and an iPhone app in order to extend the audience. The game challenges users to starve their hungry 'evil bin' by catching all recyclable waste using the keypad to control the recycling bin, or just tilting the iPhone. The app extends the importance of recycling to a new generation of Londoners. Players can forward the game to friends and challenge them to beat their score on a live scoreboard.
On launching its TV serialisation 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles', Virgin 1 sought to reach an audience of tech-savvy, early adopters, with an engaging promotion for the brand and the audience. Participants visit www.terminate-a-mate.com to sign up friends by submitting their name and mobile details to be 'terminated'. The friend then receives a personalised mobile video telling them that the Terminators are hijacking their phone and are in the immediate vicinity.
The video shows their name, mobile number and a map of their location. The friend can then do the same to someone else from the mobile internet site www.terminate-a-mate.mobi.
One of the great challenges for creatives is to develop a rewarding browsing experience for the UK's 15 million regular mobile web users, regardless of the diverse range of handsets they use. With different operating systems and screen sizes, advertisers need to make sure their mobile offerings are 'made for mobile'. Handset detection software allows you to optimise the browsing experience and use the handset's full capabilities.
Three leading mobile sites, BBC, Google and Yahoo! automatically redirect browsers to 'made for mobile' sites from the same URL used for a PC.
Jaguar launched the XF model in the USA with a heavy-weight mobile advertising campaign, delivering over 120 million impressions across mobile internet sites including Yahoo! and MSN. The banner ads attracted 1 million unique visitors (0.8% CTR), to a purpose-built mobile internet site - WML, XHTML and iPhone versions.
On the site users view detailed information on the car, download video-clips, wallpapers and TV ads, find their nearest dealer and order an email brochure to be sent to their PC. This campaign's success has prompted Jaguar North America to develop sites for the XK, XF, and XFR models, and commit an additional $1.6 million to mobile advertising for 2009, a major vote of confidence in mobile amid difficult trading conditions.
The COI is a pioneer in creative mobile marketing. In its quest to engage elusive and sceptical teenagers, and raise awareness of sexual wellbeing, the Department for Children, Schools and Families developed 'Want Respect - Wear a Condom', the world's first interactive mobile drama. The campaign uses web and WAP banner ads to sign up subscribers at www.thmbnls.mobi to receive 22 weekly episodes.
The 'mobisodes' are personalised: viewers' names appear in characters' mobile phone books, and weekly reminders from the characters invite viewers to change the storyline via text response. In a UK first, data charges were zero-rated so all video downloads are totally free to receive, thereby maximising its appeal to cost-conscious teenagers.
Mobile creativity is in great shape. Technically, there really are no real limits any more, and those brands willing to take risks will steel a march on their competitors. Interaction and engagement lie at the heart of successful digital campaigns, and the examples mentioned prove that mobile is a fertile channel for forward thinking marketers to exploit its opportunities.
1. Be innovative. Maximise the potential of the mobile phone and then do a little bit more... consumers love this and it holds great word of mouth opportunities.
2. Be personal. By personalising your marketing messages and letting customers interact, engagement is likely to be higher.
2. Be personal. By personalising your marketing messages and letting customers interact, engagement is likely to be higher.
3. Be useful. Some of the biggest and best mobile campaigns have given consumers a service or application they need, and will use for a long period of time. This way you're actually becoming a part of their daily lives.
4. Be social. Bring people together with your creative, and help them become brand advocates, even giving them the tools necessary to tell others about you.
5. Be aware. Keep abreast of what's possible on mobile, and more importantly what works, with the case studies at www.iabuk.net