About Mobile Brands

Hi, This is one place which will give you information on the mobile campaigns that have taken place in India and UAE. WAP, Blue Tooth, SMS, Mobile games, Applications or just general info on what the mobile industry is up to is what this blog is all about.
I was working with group M (Mindshare, Maxus) in Bangalore and was able to conduct a host of mobile campaigns. Rite now in Dubai working with an agency that gives total mobile solutions. If you are looking at customized mobile solutions for any type of business do write in at suraj.lighthouse@gmail.com . If you are based in Dubai do mail me your contact number and will surly get in touch.
Mobile and the technology that comes along with it, is a medium that is widely available with any mobile marketing agency, it’s how creatively you fit it for a brand which is the key for a good campaing.

Wrangler’s Intergraded Media Approach

It was just a matter of time where we would see more and more apparel brands using the digital space to target their consumers. The latest entrant in this bandwagon is Wrangler. Even though the medium has been used before by other brands, the way wrangler used Online, Wap and Bluetooth is something commendable. Wrangler used Bluetooth technology to get footfall to their newly launched store the content that they pushed was a coupon which user could redeem if they bought some merchandise at the store and few wallpaper of their Bollywood brand ambassador. The complete number of downloads or coupons redeemed is not given however they did find on the first day itself people redeeming the coupons.

Apart from this, wrangler created a wap site with content like wallpapers, themes and a mobile ring tone. This was promoted using offline, online and mobile media. Since John Abraham being a very sort after celebrity, content with him in it did very well for the brand. In two weeks they have got 70000 + down load’s, across content, wallpapers and ring tones being the top most in that list. There was also an online component roped in giving the user more inform about the brand and since the web being a visual medium the brand could showcase their products along with a contest… winner takes home a customized chopper… how cool is that..

We took the liberty to insert analytics to our microsite to get the usual info on user behavior and to find out where they coming from. Surprisingly we got a lot of direct users coming in to the site which confirms to us that promoting online media through traditional media actually works. The wap and microsite was promoted in all offline media….. Hoardings, press and ground events, POP’s ….. You name it and we were there. This gave us 500+ registered users who took part in the contest in just 2 days. Check out the was site by loging on through your GPRS phones to wap.mauj.com/wrangler and also visit www.wrangler-trulyclean.com

At the moment its too early to say how this integrated approach of digital media along with traditional will do well for the brand, even thought there are case studies like sunilkgangofgirls.com who took the web as the main medium and promoted it extensively through TV. One can not deny or turn away from the fact that in India TV reaches to 60 % and at the moment is the medium to reach out to the masses. However an integrated approach using the digital medium like the wrangler campaign will also give TV and other traditional media a face lift.

Mobile Media Wave

The latest buss on the media space is ad serving and reporting for ads on the mobile platform. 24/7 real media says that a lot of clients and publishers have started implementing mobile ad stream. Since this is a very new medium there is no past data on how this technology will work with different markets around the world.
The biggest challenge that the advertisers and clients will face today is the willingness of the consumers to adapt to such advertising.

Many may call it intrusive however in India mobile advertising apart from push SMS, every thing else will be permission based. Push SMS however has taken off very well in India. Only a few consumers say that it is intrusive and other say that they can delete it with out reading it so it does not bother them. However for the client is a very good way to reach out to their TG since every one has a cell phone and when any one get a message they do tend to open it. The best part is the rate. It cost around .20 to .40 Pisa per SMS pushed.

Push SMS can also work as a loyalty program for many clients. At the moment Lifestyle a multi brand departmental store in Banglaore has a loyalty program where any offers discounts are first communicated to their customers. The management informed that the mobile medium is a direct and cost effective way to retain existing customers. The other aspect for push SMS is its lead generating capability. Brands like ford, ICICI and many more use this medium to capture leads. Since per accusation cost comes to around 20 to 30 Pisa it’s the best bet to provide leads. It also depends on the communication that goes out to the database. Offer based communication gets better responses.

The next few things to watch out for are mobile blogs and video sharing. How well this will kick off is something that we will just have to wait and watch, since only 30% of the teens said they would like to have my spaces and about 12% said they wanted to access youtube on their mobile phones. Despite the slow adoption of the new medium advertisers are flocking for the first positions. One must understand that different medium give different result in different geographic locations. What does not work in US may work in India.

Nike going mobile

With their own WAP site, Nike also joined the band wagon of brands targeting the youth. Following the footsteps of Lee, Nike comes out with their own wap site which is more of a tactical incentive till the world cup. Since their new ad is making waves on TV the users are now able to view the same commercial on the handsets. The full 120 second TVC can be now downloaded to you mobile. Just SMS NIKE to 7007.

Apart form the TVC the user get wallpapers showcasing their new Team India T shirts, Themes and the tune from the commercial. The ring tone of the commercial comes in both Polly and mono tone. The only problem is that the TVC take some time to download (Which completely depends on your GPRS connection). Second is the tunes does not sound that great as it does in the TVC, since they have to be compressed and doing so looses quality.

Even though WAP just being an extension of the Web and the content being noting out of the box. There seem to be a huge demand for mobile application downloads. Nike received around 140000 downloads in just one month. To make the numbers happen no advertising was done on traditional media. Ads were placed on Youtube and other networking sites giving instructions on how to go to the WAP site for cool free downloads.

The WAP site has helped brands in reaching the youth and it seems that India has reached a critical mass on this medium, however we are still far away from Japan, UK and the US where 3G has taken over the mobile space.

Nike and the agency have done a great job promoting the game (Cricket) on all mediums possible, it too bad that our players can’t do the same in keeping the expectations of a billion people. With India out of the world cup there may be chances that we may not see lots of action from this brand for some time.

Bluecasting

What is blue casting?
Blue casting is a proximity marketing tool which enables brands to deliver content and applications to Blue tooth enabled mobile phones.

Can we track the users?
We can track the users, which would mean if a user has opted- in and received some content we know they have received it an, so therefore the next time they come into range they can be sent new content or can be ignored.
We can do city wise targeting in this so the brand can run different campaigns as per their market prioritization.

How did we go about it?
The blue casting unit along with a communication was put in high traffic locations. Once the content is pushed to the user he has to option of accepting it or rejecting it.
This is exclusive LEE content and free of cost to mobile phone users and has nothing to do with the online Lee site. We have a total of 14,000 plus LEE content downloaded either through wallpaper, ring tone, TVC etc etc. We also have plugged in a contest and the correct answer gets them an instant gratification in terms of 10% disc m coupon which they can immediately redeem at the store on his purchase.

Even new applications like the Fit Finder or the Mobile Catalogue have been pushed and according to the stats people have downloaded the entire application. To use the Fit Finder, you need to key in your vital statistics (weight, height and so on) via your cell phone. The Fit Finder will then recommend your best fit jeans. This has been a revolution in the mobile marketing history in India and we plan to continue doing such campaigns for our clients. We also plan to introduce new innovative technologies in the mobile space for the India market which would definitely add value to the brand in its communications to its customers. This is just a first step towards it……

Lee wap site

Why a wap site: - The whole idea on creating a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) site for Lee was to target the media where we can find our TG. Our first preference was the Online space but after a deeper study we understood that youngster of today spend a lot of their time using their cell phones. The primary use of a cell phone for our TG is for SMS. From our study we also found out that a good 30% + have GPRS connected and actively use this facility for content download. In India we have more than 42 million GSM users and more than 10 Million CDMA users, the A circle being Maharastra, Gujarat, A.P, Karnataka, T.N., Delhi, B’ Circle being Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, UP (E&W), Rajasthan, M.P., W.B & A&N , C’ Circle being H.P., Bihar, Orissa, Assam, N.E., J&K.
The sheer usage and the technological interactivity that this media give convinced us that mobile is the rite medium to tap our TG.

How did we go about it? : - We had the TG and we had our medium the next step was on what to communicate to the TG. After a small research that we did on two WAP sites (Yahoo and Mauj) wallpapers, themes, videos, games and applications were the preferred content downloaded. Hence we created exclusive Lee wap content in the form of Wallpapers, Themes, Mobile catalogue (where the user can see the entire seasons catalogue on his had set), fit finder application (a one of its kind application where you can choose your body structure, and a type of fit you want, the application will recommend the jeans for you) & a game.
The user could just SMS lee to 7007 and he would receive a link to go to the lee exclusive wap site. We have kept in mind that the content has to be refreshed from time to time to make the site livelier. The Lee WAP site has been advertised on offline mediums, mauj and yahoo wap sites. The communication was SMS lee to 7007 to get cool downloads or go to wap.mauj.com/lee on ur gprs enabled phone.

The Result: - The site went live on the 15th of September and we were expecting a download rate of 250 to 300 per day. The fist week we were averaging around 500+ downloads a day and finally after 3 weeks averaged 1,0000 + downloads a day.
As of now the Lee WAP site has a record of 150000 downloads across all applications with a current CPC (Cost per Contact of 8.3 Rs). The Wallpapers and Videos being the highest content downloaded. Apart from completing our objective of targeting our TG through a new age medium and reinforcing the communication by interactivity, Lee is one of the first brands to have an exclusive WAP site.
Have attached a link on the article that was carried out on agecnyfaqs. Lee - "Tapping youth on the move, the Lee way."
Link - http://www.agencyfaqs.com/news/stories/2006/10/03/16085.html_