Mobile is not an option anymore. And brands are coming to terms with this fact.
A report published by mobilemarketer.com, states that businesses “not embracing mobile will be left behind” by millennial generation (born from the early 1980s to the early 2000s). The study, conducted by Mitek and Zogby Analytics, shows that 60% millennials think that mobile will take over the web in the next five years.
More data on why mobile first matters -
- 70% of mobile searches lead to an online action within an hour. (Eloqua)
- 87% of millennials said that they never leave their smartphones. (mobilemarketer)
- 80% of millennials said that the first thing they do in the morning, is checking their phones. (mobilemarketer)
- 81% of millennials believe that it’s compulsory for retailers to offer high quality mobile apps. (mobilemarketer)
- 75% of USA residents admit that they carry their phone to the bathroom. (nydailynews)
Mary Meeker’s state of the internet report gave us a greater insight into the future of mobile.
Another interesting fact -
More mobile devices are sold than the number of babies born every day around the world. (lukew)
If you’ve already started mobile marketing then you are definitely at an advantage. But if you haven’t yet started thinking mobile, you are making your brand lag behind by at least a decade, because the days are moving faster than ever with mobile!
Over here we've jotted down 7 amazing mobile marketing campaigns. They will help you understand the opportunities and possibilities and inspire you to think ahead.
L’Oreal’s personalized mobile ads: L’Oreal is not a new name in beauty and fashion industry. But what they did with their mobile ad campaign, set them apart from others in the business.
They incorporated a photo recognition technology to run an ad drive. In this, the app detects the hair color from the photo of the consumer and shows a relevant ad. For example, if the hair color is detected as blonde, the app will show ads for blonde hair color products.
The campaign is famous as the Ombre campaign. It targets women aged between 18 and 40, fashion conscious and often search for beauty and fashion products.
How the campaign is different: L’Oreal understands that when it comes to selecting the right hair color, women have a lot of choices and as a result they get confused. Call it the “paradox of choice”. This mobile campaign solves the problem by identifying the right hair color as well as showing the relevant products to choose from.
StarBucks’ easy coffee campaign: The coffee giant has made having coffee on the go easier than ever with their Card mobile app. The app is available only for the US-based users and is definitely a life-saver for the always on-the-go crowd.
The app was introduced to ease the mobile payment for coffee lovers. Customers just need to download the app, and whenever they feel an urge to grab a cup of coffee, they need to charge it up with credit and then scan it at the checkpoint and pay for the coffee.
StarBucks first launched the app for iPhone and BlackBerry but followed by the immense success, they decided to re-introduce it for android as well. Around 3 million people paid for their coffee through this app at its nascent days.
How the campaign is different: It makes life easier for the caffeine lovers who’re always busy and always on-the-go.
Renault went location marketing with mobile: Renault took to mobile campaign to raise awareness for its new electric car, Zoe. The app looked beyond location data to target interested people on-the-go in Britain.
The ad targeted only those users, who had either a relevant browsing history or called dealerships with related queries. The message popped up whenever anyone of the target audience turned up within 5-mile radius of any Renault dealership. The idea was to them to the nearest showroom.
The campaign also pulled in demographic and socio-economic data from Weve, Apple and Mosaic.
How the campaign is different: The campaign is unique in its usage and blend of location data with consumer data to raise awareness about a new product.
How Hershey leveraged AT&T’s sponsored data ads: Hershey’s Scharffen Berger chocolate is one of the first brands that understood “offering free data in exchange for watching a video could influence a consumer to interact with more mobile advertising and video since the megabytes will not affect their phone plans.” And this is the secret of success of their mobile marketing.
The ads ran as banners in the Pandora iPhone app. Once the banner ad is clicked, it shows a landing page and a text that explains that watching the video will not consume data from their mobile plan. The user can then watch the 30-second Scharffen Berger commercial.
Once the ad is viewed, a message pops up and tells the user that he has saved 2 megabytes along with a promo code, which he can apply to any online sale. Clicking on the ad makes the user land on the e-commerce page of brand.
How the campaign is different: The utility! Scharffen Berger not only promoted their premium product line to their mobile customers, but also gave a sense of being helpful
(watching the video didn’t cause a dip in their mobile data; instead it saved 2 MB)
JetBlue customizes mobile ads to target different devices: Very few brands understand that every device makes a difference in their marketing effort. Jet Blue is one of them. They introduced customized mobile ads separately for smartphone users and tablet users.
Long-form video, geofencing and messaging – the 3 components of Jet Blue’s Air on the Side of Humanity mobile campaign. The strategies for customer engagement are totally different for smartphone users and tablet users.
For smartphone users, the call-to-action of the ads remains less aggressive. These ads are more focused on branding, rather than sales. For tablet users, the ads contain a rich media to let the consumers interact with the little mascots in the video. The reason behind this is, tablet users spend a longer time on their device, compared to smartphone users.
How the campaign is different: Elizabeth Eelman, advertising manager at JetBlue summed it all, “What we’ve found is that we really can no longer consider smartphones and tablets as one platform.”
Meat Pack dragged customers to the store and how!: Guatemala-based retail store, Meat Pack created one unique location marketing with their mobile app. The Hijack campaign is the proof that no matter what’s the size of your business, with the right marketing mix, you can be a sure-shot winner.
At the initial phase of marketing, they asked their existing customers to download their mobile app with promises of multiple surprises. Once they got a good number of downloads, they launched the campaign.
During the promotion, whenever a customer entered into a mall, the app sent him a mobile alert by push messaging. As soon as he opened the message, he got to see a “100% off” message. With every passing minute, the discount rate went down. So, in order to grab the most of the offer, the customers had to run to the store.
How the campaign is different: The brand mixed their existing user data, gamification as well as location-based information to run the mobile campaign successfully. Together they created a sense of urgency and also evoked a fear of losing an offer. What a clever move!
Red Bull’s one-click video to expedite app downloads: This time, the energy drink brand tried Twitter ads to generate their app downloads. They chose the ad format that plays the video whenever the tweet was clicked.
Red Bull posted two different tweets to promote their new Red Bull Focus app. It was an interactive gaming puzzle. Each tweet had a 15-second video. It was a one-click video promotion. So, whenever a user clicked on it, it started playing Red Bull’s collection of outdoor sports photography automatically.
Many experts are of opinion that this one-click video is Twitter’s answer to Facebook’s auto-play videos. Red Bull is one of those handful names that not only utilized the feature but also cashed on it, in terms of branding.
How the campaign is different: This is a typical app install campaign, but the way Red Bull did it, is simply splendid. The technique has now become popular and many brands are trying their hand at it. But Red Bull did it at the initial phase to improve customer engagement and that’s the secret of its virality.
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