Monday, September 1, 2008

Another mobile case study - Guiness pub finder

The brief
Guinness asked Marvellous to develop a campaign to engage drinkers in the lead up to St. Patrick’s Day 2008, one of the biggest party days of the year for Guinness consumption. The campaign had to have credibility and longevity beyond 17 March to justify investment, and therefore had to be flexible enough to work across several of Guinness’s marketing programmes.
Objectives
Guinness wanted to connect with its customers, and get them involved with the brand on a deeper level than straightforward consumption. By providing them with innovative on-brand planning tools and entertainment, the mobile campaign created “talkability” and encouraged fun, interaction and banter in the pub and beyond. Guinness also wanted to use the campaign to promote its new product, Guinness Red, and introduce it to traditional Guinness drinkers and the wider market.
Strategy
The Guinness target audience of sport- and style-aware 18-40 year olds is completely at home with mobile technology, and relaxed about sophisticated digital interaction. Their handsets are always on, always with them, and tend to be high end. Consequently, Marvellous proposed a range of Java downloads to deliver cutting edge brand engagement which would live on the phone and be returned to many times.
Solution
Marvellous created a mobile destination site, accessed via calls to action in press, radio, online and mobile media. The site was designed to reflect and enhance the brand values of Guinness, and bring these to a new and always-available medium.
Apart from basic information about Guinness and its products, the site housed several applications, including:
Pubfinder – this enables users to identify pubs via LBS, postcode or area look-up. It can also find the nearest St. Pat’s party pub, the nearest one with sports TV, or the nearest one serving Guinness Red. Many pubs are independently reviewed and photographed and this database is being extended all the time. Because the Pubfinder is a java download, the data can be dynamically refreshed on the handset, keeping it up to date and relevant.
119.5 Pub Quiz – a selection of four java quizzes where consumers answer as many questions as possible in 119.5 seconds, the time it takes to pour the perfect pint of Guinness. They could then submit their scores to a national leaderboard, also accessible via Facebook, with great Irish prizes for the top scorer.
Picture Gallery – St. Pat’s party-goers were asked to send in their photos of the celebrations to the special shortcode, 81703. There they could view their own, their friends’ and a random selection of all photos submitted. Again, the photographs could also be viewed on the Guinness Facebook pages.
Results
The results were spectacular for a short-term (2-week) campaign, and far exceeded the KPIs set by the client. More than 30% of the 35,000+ unique users downloaded at least one of the Java applications, with the quizzes proving particularly popular.
The results also proved the effectiveness of clickthrough ads on mobile portals, which delivered fantastic ROI compared to more traditional channels. Research into the effectiveness of the mobile media banners conducted for Vodafone live! by Dynamic Logic showed a 25% lift in mobile ad awareness, 12% lift in brand favourability, and a 9% rise in purchase intent, with a 3% clickthrough rate in certain areas.
Next Steps
Working with Marvellous, Guinness has updated the St. Pat's campaign site into a permanent mobile presence. The site is now promoted in much of their above the line media and Guinness has committed to include mobile in future campaigns.

Unilever - mobile case study

Thanks MMA for this case study:

Unilever Increases Teen Awareness with Multi-Faceted Mobile Campaign (Nokia)
Client: Unilever – Seda Shampoo, Brazil
Sector: Consumer goods, Beauty & personal care
Challenge: Raise awareness of Seda Shampoo among teens in Brazil
Solution: Mobile campaign and customized Nokia 5200 Pink handset
Results: 5% CTR, more than 360,000 visits to mobile site
The client – Unilever, Seda Shampoo
Unilever is the multi-national parent company of many of the world’s leading consumer brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. Unilever employs nearly 180,000 people globally.
The challenge – Raise awareness of Seda Shampoo among teens in Brazil The Seda brand is part of the Beauty and Hygiene Division of Unilever Brazil. Seda is the leader in the Brazilian shampoo market, with 25% market share. Sold in 80 countries, it even holds the Guinness World Record for the most heads of hair washed and styled in one day. When Seda prepared to release a teen-friendly version of its shampoo, executives discovered that most teens preferred to be communicated with via their mobile handsets. Nokia and interactive agency F.biz created a mobile advertising campaign along with customized handsets for the brand.
The solution – Mobile campaign and customized Nokia 5200 Pink handset As part of the Seda Teens product launch, Nokia and F.biz developed a mobile campaign featuring banner advertising on the Nokia Media Network, and wallpaper and game downloads on a customized Nokia 5200 Pink handset. Banner ads led customers to the download page of the Seda Teens Java game and a Seda Teens branded social networking site. The site allowed users to browse beauty and health tips, horoscopes and an “Experts” area where they could submit questions.
The 5200 Pink came preloaded with Seda Teens advertisements in the opening and closing screens, four Seda Teens campaign themes and MP3s from a popular Brazilian band. The 5200 Pink was shipped with its bookmarks pointing to the Seda mobile community and a mobile game, Dancing Star, was placed as a free download.
The results – 5% CTR, more than 360,000 visits to mobile site
  • 5% average click-through rate
  • More than 360,000 visits to the mobile Internet site in two months, twice the number of visits to the Seda Teens website
  • More than 11,000 game downloads
Paula Lopes, Marketing Manager, Unilever
“We are excited to be taking part in this new marketing initiative, allowing us to reach the consumers we want on the device they want. This campaign shows how innovative both Nokia and Unilever are when it comes to reaching consumers.”
About Nokia Interactive Advertising
Nokia Interactive Advertising provides brands with all that they need to connect with and engage the mobile consumer. It includes:
  • The Nokia Media Network, which gives reach to millions of mobile consumers through advertising on more than 100 blue-chip mobile publishers, operator partners and Nokia services.
  • Nokia Interactive Solutions that create end-to-end, high performance mobile campaigns for brands using banner ads, mobile Internet sites and location finders, mobile coupons, click-to-call and other advanced mobile mechanics.
To see mobile advertising in action, please visit nokia.mobi/advertising on any mobile device.

Android Challenge Pt. I: Balancing the Expected with the Experimental

Thanks Mashabale for this overview of some of the apps soon to be coming out on Andriod. I'll post each part as it comes out.

his week the first round of the Android Challenge drew to a close. And if it hasn’t already done so, Google will be distributing over half of the $10 million cash prize pool promised among Challenge I and Challenge II finalists/winners. Judges of Challenge I settled on 50 finalists, all of whom were granted $50,000 applications. Additionally, 10 were given $100,000 awards each, while another 10 received $275,000 each. Challenge II takes place subsequent the release of the first handset(s) arriving with Android software.

Over the last couple of days I’ve casually observed what has achieved placement on the Android Challenge leaderboard. Many - if not most - applications are devoted very much to location-aware activities. Some are interesting gaming developments. But of course what drew my interest most from titles of the winners and almost-winners displayed are those that will cater social services to users.

Sure, the social apps are but a segment of what will be available come the launch of Android and the Android Market. The finalist labeled PedNav and GWalk, to name two examples, are likely to be useful for city residents or visitors aiming to get the most efficient use of pedestrian infrastructure. Not to mention that City Slikkers could very well be a gamer’s delight if enough first adopters make an effort to partake in the virtual-plus-reality play. We all recognize the popularity bestowed on games within Apple’s own big-selling storefront. Nonetheless, I imagine that the social options will be among those that rank among the most popular for opening day and the weeks that follow.

Maverick, for instance, is a local client that allows for the communication of text, location and media (audio, photos, and “scribbles”) through Google Talk. It also allows Blogger users to publish content to the Web and for Gmail users to get notifications about messages in their inboxes. Granted, it sounds very Googley, and it is, but to deliver something so multifunctional, if done right, will I think be very appealing. PebbleBox, alternatively, is central to one’s location. Learn about events, restaurants, and hotels in a given area, and, if you wish, write geo-tagged blogs to share with fellow users. A rough parallel to Loopt on the iPhone, you might say, but a bit more general-purpose perhaps. Just to note, both Maverick and Pebblebox were awarded $100,000 prizes.

Dropping down into the broader pool of finalists, there is Marvin, which according to creator Laurent Pontier will allow users to post “geo-localized rich messages” to one’s friends and/or the wider network. Marvin taps the powers of the Android OpenGL API, Google Maps, and Google StreetView to give the user a virtual 3D representation of the so-called social graph, from Google Earth-like outer space view to one at road level. Visually, it must impress. Whether it’s truly utilitarian, we’ll see.

LifeAware is one more location-sharing service that automates your interaction with those you know (and maybe those you would like to). There are many similar services already put into play over the past couple of years that exhibit virtually the same capability, but this pick may nonetheless be something proves popular. An application called SocialMonster also draws from your phonebook to keep you and the people in your life in sync.

Again, it is hard to escape the location-smart dimension of many of Google’s picks, which of course falls well into line with some of the items we’ve seen arrive in the iTunes App Store marketplace. And that seems the right direction to take the Android Challenge - at least the first round of it. With more phones equipped with GPS devices or with software capable of gathering rough coordinates from cellular towers in a given area, where you are will determine what you want to do. Which is sensible. Planning outings with friends will not be so tedious.

No mass phone call campaigns or SMS relays. The act of getting together or simply staying in touch will be much less cumbersome. And wonderfully enough, Google has made it a point to incentivize independent developers and small developer teams. Much as the iPhone App Store shows on its own adjoining software platform, the finalists in this event seem to take a very experimental approach. Some of course are quite ordinary. But some stretch one’s curiosity muscle a good amount. Which is unquestionably necessary if progress is to be made. If Google ensures the openness of Android, all the better. The experience may not always be as polished as that of the iPhone. But as with anything in the business, it is the software that makes the star. Android’s star power will be seen in short order.

As for Round 2, there’s still $4.75 million to be distributed. If T-Mobile releases its Android-based device in the fall, as many now assume, the Challenge will continue on schedule. Google offers a rough estimate of “second half of 2008.”

Thursday, August 28, 2008

OH YEAH- BRING ON THE G1 - the google phone

No More Speculation - This is the G1 from T-Mobile

Thanks Androidguys: Written by AndroidGuys • Aug 26th, 2008 •

AND: click here for a list of the 50 apps that won the developer challenge

AND: click here for one cool as hell one that didn't - ENKIN

Update: Since we published this article, we’ve received some specs from a few people/places. Click here to see a compiled list of the inner beauty.

It’s time to put this rumor to bed once and for all. We’ve seen a handful of mockups online these last few weeks guessing as to what the first Android handset is going to look like. We even saw a video that divided many fanboys, including us AndroidGuys. Well, thanks to a trusted source claiming to be close to one of the three parties involved, we’re here to show you officially what the G1 is going to look like and it’s very similar to what you guys have been seeing lately. There are only a couple of things to this design that we didn’t see coming.


Click here for higher resolution image. One noticeable difference is the slight tilt to the bottom of the handset where the trackball is located. Although it’s a small change, it’s worth noting. We love the 5 row QWERTY keyboard with the spaced out buttons, reminiscent of recent Sidekick devices. We’re curious to see what that “menu” button is for as well. Obviously, we think we know what it’s for, but with this thing

Check out the back of the device where it shows “With Google” on it. It tells us that T-Mobile and HTC are using the brand recognition to help sell the handset. It’s also nice to see HTC’s name on the back as this will put them on the map in a major way. They deserve to see a little love for all the other handsets they’ve been pumping out over the years.

The more we see this thing, the more it’s growing on us. A black version of this handset will look very sharp, with brown and white iterations likely pulling in some fans too.

TV's Future Looks Like Web's Present

Thanks Adweek: Forrester says targeted ads and a portal-like menu of options are coming to your set

Aug 27, 2008 -By Brian Morrissey

adweek/photos/stylus/25535-TV.jpg

Forrester: The shift will help TV remain the dominant advertising medium.

NEW YORK TV advertising is poised to change dramatically over the next decade, embracing the kind of targeting and user control already common on the Web, according to a new report by Forrester Research.

Forrester lays out a decade-long evolution that will ultimately result in most programming delivered on-demand with targeted ad messages based on location and behavior, along with community functions.

This "Personal TV," as Forrester calls it, would also deliver a Web-like experience for consumers, with a portal-like menu of programming options and search functions.

Forrester sees this shift giving TV an opportunity to remain the dominant ad medium it is today. While a personalized offering would seem geared toward further audience fragmentation, Forrester anticipates systems that would allow advertisers to reach mass audiences in a targeted manner. What's more, cable companies, with subscribers' billing histories, know more about users than Web companies. Ultimately, TV will work like the Web, enabling viewers to interact with ads up to the point of purchase.

"The players here are the people who own the popular programs and then the distributors who have digital systems capable of serving programs into set top boxes," said David Graves, the report's author.

That hasn't stopped Web giants such as Google and Microsoft from trying to break into the medium and extend their reach across TV advertising. Google is placing ads through Echostar's Dish Network and Microsoft has plans to build an ad network after buying Navic Networks.

In the near term, Forrester expects experimentation in video on-demand offerings by cable companies, like CBS's CSI on Comcast that includes ads that cannot be skipped.

Forrester predicts that in 2010, targeting and on-demand programming systems will be up and running, before the big industry-wide shift takes place from 2012-18.

What's taken so long? Forrester spreads the blame across the TV landscape. Cable companies didn't build-out video on-demand as an ad-supported platform, networks protected the lucrative status quo and agencies didn't push for innovation.