First Course…

Putting Mobile in the Marketing and Advertising Mix

Amist the doom and gloom over print and online advertising revenue predictions, there have been some highlights and positive outlooks for mobile advertising.  So if we accept that investment in mobile marketing and advertising will continue to grow in 2009, albeit not necessarily at the level some of us would like, there still remains the debate whether mobile is better suited for branding or direct response marketing campaigns.

Mobile Advertising: Branding or Direct Response?

My answer is both.  The mobile medium is well-suited, with its ubiquity, always-on nature, and relatively uncluttered landscape, to increase your brand recognition.  Mobile advertising has proven to aid in brand awareness and intent to buy.

As appropriate as mobile may be for branding, mobile also inherently offers a direct response given its connected nature.  Whether its click-to-call, click-to-locate, click-to-buy, click-to-video, or click/text-to-subscribe, consumers have multiple avenues of responding to and interacting with your brand.  Recent direct marketing campaigns offering mobile coupons, sweepstakes entries, invitations to VIP clubs, and alerts have generated phenomenal response rates for the likes of Ed Hardy, Little Ceasars, Church’s Chicken, and more.  In fact, research has shown that mobile advertising and mobile SMS campaigns outperform online response rates.

Mobile Marketing Hits and Misses

While so many companies are having success in mobile, you still see very few that integrate mobile into their overall marketing campaigns.  Look at the recent Super Bowl.  It may be the biggest sporting event of the year, but it is also the biggest advertising event with more and more “fans” watching “for the commercials.”  Yet only Monster.com and cars.com integrated mobile in a big way.  Monster.com was a direct response ad, looking for a “Director of Fandemonium,” while cars.com’s “David Abernathy” was a branding ad promoting the use of their mobile website.  Kim Dushinski over at Mobile Marketing Profits did a nice video commentary about the Super Bowl Ads.

Another example was the post-Thanksgiving “Mobile Tuesday” event geared to drive foot-traffic to retailers and restaurants, as well as generate mobile marketing lists for advertisers.  The companies that participated in this campaign did nothing to cross-promote on their websites or marketing campaigns (read more on my blog post at Crisp Voices).

Second Course on the way…

About the Author – Tamara Gruber is Vice President of Marketing at Crisp Wireless.  Please feel free to share your hits and misses with her.  You can drop her a line at tamara.gruber@crispwireless.com or follow her on twitter.

Disclaimer – Crisp Wireless built the cars.com mobile website.