Every Single One Of Us

Retailer Belle Tire saw a 55 percent opt-in rate for its Mobile Advantage club after offering consumers $20 off its products for participating.

During an hour-long Hipcricket-sponsored Mobile Marketer webinar, Belle Tire illustrated the success that SMS and mobile coupons provide retailers. The webinar panel was moderated by Mobile Marketer’s Dan Butcher.

“We started to think of what other ways we can grow our database and the mobile platform stuck out,” said Don Barnes, marketing manager at Belle Tire, Allen Park, MI. “We had close to 20 percent coupon redemption.

“One thing about our success is the offer and whether it is a text platform or email platform, it’s whatever is best for the customer,” he said. “We want to reward the people that continue to do business with Belle Tire and this is the best type of advertising.”

Consumers were asked to text the keyword TIRE to short code 90302.

Here is a screen grab of the SMS communication:

Belle Tire goes mobile
Belle Tire soon ran another mobile campaign to beef up its mobile database.

The company built a loyalty program to reward its most loyal consumers.

Belle Tire wanted to establish an ROI on traditional advertising including TV and radio and tagged existing TV and radio spots with mobile calls-to-action.

Consumers were asked to text the keyword WINGS to short code 90392.

Those who texted in received a $20-off coupon for their next purchase at Belle Tire.

Participants were then invited to join the Belle Tire Mobile Advantage program, and 77 percent opted into the club.

“By giving them a $20 bill, it incentivizes them to choose us instead of one of our competitors,” Mr. Barnes said. “Any of these campaigns, they all have got to complement each other because you’re able to get that customer and fill their needs.

“When it comes to tires, no one wants to buy tires and it is very low frequency,” he said. “Sometimes people don’t even buy tires, but we really wanted to reward our customers who continuously go here.”

Here is the SMS communication for the WINGS keyword:

In addition to its TV and radio spots, there were offers in advertising around Detroit Red Wings, Detroit

Pistons and Michigan State Spartans games.

Belle Tire used different keywords such as WINGS, GREEN and DUNK to track interactions.

All calls-to-action prompted consumers to reply with the keyword BELLE to opt-in for the database and get a coupon.

Belle Tire plans to use mobile to better its overall consumer experience and improve ease of use.

Additionally, Belle Tire will conduct SMS customer surveys and SMS service reminders. It will encourage survey participation via coupon offers:

“We want to reward people that continuously work hard,” Mr. Barnes said. “Especially because they’ve been continuously part of the database and advantage club.

“Text has been working very successfully with Belle Tire,” he said. “It’s the ease of use and they don’t have to sit on their computer and it’s been very easy to redeem.”

Mobile coupon challenges 
Eric Harber, president and COO of Hipcricket, Kirkland, WA, addressed several challenges with mobile coupons.

The challenges include the delivery to end users and tracking end-to-end measurability such as the point-of-sale conversion, redemption, basket size and lifetime value of consumers.

The portability of mobile coupons is an advantage.

“The majority of shoppers still get their coupons from newspapers, but we’re seeing some change in that regard,” Mr. Harber said. “It’s important to measure and track how coupons are accessed.”

“Text-message coupons are quick and simple and reach everyone – almost everyone is familiar with texting,” he said. “Bar codes are good too, but the difficulty is that different consumers have different phones.

“The quality of the camera phone is a determining factor – some cameras have a hard time with bar codes.”

According to Yankee Group, 73 percent of consumers want to receive a mobile coupon.

In addition, the number of mobile coupons redeemed in the United States is set to increase more than tenfold in 2010, followed by triple-digit increases in both 2011 and 2012.

Mr. Harber gave an example of coupon use. The Coffee Bean used a call-to-action on a radio spot to drive its sales.

Consumers were encouraged to text the keyword BEAN to a short code to receive a free coffee mobile coupon.

Coffee Bean revised its advertising after viewing the response rate in real time and tailored the offer for optimal ROI.

“The results are interesting,” Mr. Harber said. “They drove people into their retail locations, which they wanted to be the case.

“You can use mobile coupons without spending a lot of money,” he said. “With personalized coupons you see higher redemption rates.”

According to Mr. Harber, a company can have its campaign up-and-running in minutes.

“Companies need to determine whether their mobile coupons campaigns are going to be push or pull

campaigns, choose a format, such as bar codes or text messaging, create a coupon and send it out,” Mr. Harber said.

“The time is here and mobile coupons should be integrated into a company’s marketing plan,” he said.

“The efficiency is pretty straight forward – launch an SMS campaign first and make sure that you don’t charge consumers to receive the coupon.”

Retailer Belle Tire saw a 55 percent opt-in rate for its Mobile Advantage club after offering consumers $20 off its products for participating.During an hour-long Hipcricket-sponsored Mobile Marketer webinar, Belle Tire illustrated the success that SMS and mobile coupons provide retailers. The webinar panel was moderated by Mobile Marketer’s Dan Butcher.campaigns, choose a format, such as bar codes or text messaging, create a coupon and send it out,” Mr. Harber said.

BMW ran a campaign in 2007 to sell winter tyres, using mobile phones. They achieved a 30% conversion rate and sold 45 million dollars worth of tyres and rims in Germany, on a campaign that cost about 200,000 dollars

BMW collected the mobile phone numbers and permissions to market to its new customers in Germany. In Germany there is a winter season, when snow is on the ground, and winter tyres are mandatory. Cars sold during winter months have winter tyres as standard features. BMW analyzed its new car buyer customer base and removed all who had received winter tyres with their cars, and also removed fleet buyers. Of the remaining residential car buyers, the prepared a customized mobile phone campaign, tailored for each driver. They prepared an MMS picture message, which featured the front quarter of the BMW car, with the right car model and colour of the buyer. Then they offered in the picture, the recommended tyre, fitted onto the rims that the buyer had.

BMW waited until the first snow fell in Germany, and on that day, sent the MMS message as a bulk mailing to all such buyers. The MMS message included a link to connect to the mobile internet site where the BMW owner could trial other tyres, virtually, as well as other rims, for his or her car model.

The campaign generated an actual conversion rate of 30%, meaning of all who received the ad, three in ten actually walked into an authorized BMW dealer, and bought at least tyres, often also rims. BMW has not released the actual numbers of sales generated, but industry analysts Romi Parmar and Ajit Jaokar have dug up the numbers and calculated that in Germany of BMW’s new car sales in 2007, the total fleet of cars sold in the summer months to non fleet buyers was 117,000 vehicles. Out of these, 35,000 customers appeared at the stores. Romi and Ajit estimated the average spend per buyer to be (based on German prices of tyres and rims, and a reasonable mix of the two) 1,300 dollars. Thus the whole campaign delivered 45 million dollars worth of extra business to BMW.

The total campaign cost about 60,000 dollars in MMS transmission costs, and it has been estimated at Forum Oxford, that the campaign design costs would not have exceeded 100,000 dollars. So the whole campaign cost far less than 200,000 dollars. Yet it yielded 45 million dollars worth of new business and 35,000 satisfied customers.

When environments of trust can be created, via whatever call to action chosen, it is possible to use the open communication channel to transmit and discuss the most sensitive of issues.

One example I would raise ran on the Ad-Funded mobile network called Blyk (prior to its licensing agreement to Orange in the UK). The network was only for 16 – 24 year olds who are the hardest to reach people for advertisers and marketers.

When considering this example, it is important to imagine what other subjects could be covered with people of different ages, so long as a trusted environment is created in advance.
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Connexions is a government organisation that offers advice, support and guidance for those aged 16 to 19 years on a range of topics

COI wanted to:

•    Engage with 16-19 year-olds on the highly sensitive issue of bullying at  school and within the workplace
•    Gain additional insight into the size of the problem
•    Drive awareness of the Connexions service – a leading contact point for advice and guidance on bullying

An SMS dialogue was designed to facilitate and encourage feedback with a question asking whether or not ‘you or your friends had ever experienced problems with bullying’

This was sent on a Sunday at 3pm, when the audience is away from school or work and more receptive to discussing this issue freely.

•    36% of members responded to the initial SMS and received information of how to seek more advice and help, 7 times industry average for SMS
•    29% had encountered bullying in school or the workplace

All respondents received a relevant follow-up SMS raising awareness of the Connexions website

•    1 in 8 Blyk respondents visited the website that day
•    The Connexions website saw a 33% uplift in visits vs the previous eight Sundays (Source: Hitwise supplied by COI)

COI has since used Blyk to promote Connexions in several further campaigns.

Blyk received many open and emotional responses on this sensitive topic .

Showing a close relationship they feel towards Blyk. This type of eesponse is rarely if ever available through any other medium. Here are a few of the many replies.

“Yes I have bin bullied all the way through school and now im in college ma sister is bein bullied and shes only twelve I no how it feels from jennifer aged sixteen”

“Ma sis said she gets bullied all tha time and she’s scared of them but she tryes to tell people whts goin on but they neva help her”

Original site: http://www.growsomethingbigger.com/guinness/sevens/

Guinness® had just become an official sponsor of the 3-day Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament. They wanted to create a strong and lasting connection between Guinness and the event in the mind of the consumer, making the brand synonymous with the Hong Kong Sevens.

The insight – many of the 20,000 overseas visitors to the Sevens are unsure where to go after the final whistle and can’t communicate in Cantonese. We created the Guinness Passport to Greatness, the world’s first talking mobile event guide that speaks Cantonese for you through your mobile’s loudspeaker. It contained event match schedules, a city guide, useful Cantonese phrases, plus all the top spots to grab a Guinness. Application downloads were driven by a competition to win Sevens tickets, which was spread virally online through the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union, social networking sites and also local/international PR.

On top of having 1000s of downloads during the week-long event, the campaign boosted Guinness sales by 30% year-on-year. Coverage of the campaign spread to the internet. Blogs mentioned it as far away as the UK and Brazil. The campaign was even presented by rival agencies as a case study of leading edge mobile advertising at the 2008 Cannes Festival.

Package-Foods Giant’s IFood Makes Cooking, Food Shopping Darn Near Sexy

by Emily Bryson York

Published: January 19, 2009

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) — One of the coolest apps on the iPhone isn’t Pandora or Facebook: It’s recipes and shopping lists for Kraft singles, Jell-O gelatin and Minute Rice.

Yes, enough Kraft Food devotees are actually paying to be marketed to on their beloved iPhones that the company’s iFood Assistant is now one of the device’s 100 most popular paid apps, and No. 2 in the lifestyle category. With its endeavor, Kraft is pulling off a rare trick: getting consumers to pay a one-time 99-cent fee for the app and also sit through ads on it. And in the process, it’s collecting useful data for targeting them more closely.

Kraft’s iFood Assistant is both a paid app and contains advertising.

The lesson: When a marketer creates something that’s actually useful, consumers don’t really see it as straight marketing, or they’re at least willing to accept advertising as the payoff.

Kraft’s app, which launched in December, is a helpful tool for consumers looking to make dinners faster, easier and more convenient. “When we look at consumers, we think that they’re busy and they’re looking for food-planning tools that can make their lives easier,” said Ed Kaczmarek, director-innovation, new services at Kraft. “We developed iFood Assistant as a downloadable app so they can use it anytime and anywhere.”

He added that his division, charged with forging deeper relationships with consumers using new technology, developed the program for the iPhone because of the consumer experience it provides.

Kraft ingredients
IFood Assistant’s rich interface works well with the handset, and its navigation is similar to that of the iPod. The app offers a host of recipes, browse-able by ingredients, meal type or prep time. Consumers may register at KraftFoods.com to save recipes and build shopping lists.

Recipes come with instructions simple enough for the uninitiated, and daily featured recipes try to tempt the uninspired. Of course, the dishes incorporate Kraft products. A featured recipe last week, for “chicken cacciatore pronto,” calls for Kraft Light Zesty Italian dressing, chicken thighs, garlic, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, red peppers, whole-wheat spaghetti, Kraft Grated Parmesan Cheese and Kraft 2% Milk Shredded Mozzarella Cheese. There are a number of instructional videos, with guides to portion sizes and knife skills, as well as step-by-step directions for making dishes, such as fishcakes or even roast turkey with sausage stuffing.

For now, Mr. Kaczmarek said Kraft is using the data to understand when and how consumers are shopping, what they’re making, and which ingredients they prefer. Since users need to sign in to Kraft Foods before downloading recipes and shopping lists, that information is sent directly to the company, allowing Kraft to gather information on which recipes are the most popular and which ingredients are most used. Kraft is, of course, running ads throughout the app, some before the instructional videos and some with searches.

“In terms of being paid, we think it’s a tremendous value for 99 cents,” Mr. Kaczmarek said. “For the price of a song, we’re delivering a robust offering, and any upgrade with more services and content will be free to the consumer.”

Rene Ritchie, editor of the iPhone Blog, said while some consumers are willing to pay for convenient apps, and others are willing to tolerate ads if something is free, it’s hard to pull off both. The fact that Kraft has been able to crack the top 100 paid apps, he said, is impressive. But he described the app’s three-star rating as “middling.”

“You want to see four, or five if people really like it,” he said. “That’s pretty middle-of-the road.” Mr. Ritchie said consumers may be downloading the app blind, since there are no free trials, and then disliking the app when they realize there are ads.

The 83 reviews posted at the App Store are all over the map, from “Not good at all!” to “Wow … best 99 cents spent.” One reviewer said, “I have used Kraft online and this is just as good, plus there are more features,” but lamented that the shopping lists weren’t comprehensive enough. Another wrote, “I’ve never really cooked a lot but these recipes make me feel like Rachael Ray in the kitchen! Thanks Kraft!”
What iFood Assistant can teach marketers

1. Consumers are willing to pay for utility and convenience.
2. They will share personal information in exchange for useful ideas.
3. Use information gathered in a targeted manner.
4. Look for the “sweet spot” of what your brand can offer consumers.
5. Mirroring Apple software is a selling point.

Ford has used the 2D barcode concept to create a virtual car, visible only when using a recent Nokia or Microsoft Mobile cameraphone. The campaign requires the consumer to load an application to the phone, but then when they encounter one of the big posters on the ground, if they point the phone at the poster, through their viewfinder on the cameraphone they see the Ford Ka.

But if they look with their eyes at the same space, they see empty space, like the street or the sidewalk or parking lot or the floor space at a shopping mall, etc. But returning to look through the cameraphone, they see the exact same scenery, but the car is superimposed into the image. The car is fully three-dimensional, and oriented based on the poster on the ground, so the consumer can go walk around the car, and always see the car in the viewfinder.

This is probably the first instance of augmented reality (enhanced reality) being used in a consumer communication situation, that does not need custom equipment. It works on dozens of models of standard mobile phones. The campaign runs in a dozen European cities such as Berlin and London. The campaign is particularly useful as an example of creating a magical experience that can only be had via a mobile phone.

The Japanese spicy snacks brand Tohato (similar to potato chips) introduced two new brands in the Autumn of 2007 through an innovative campaign. They printed 2D barcodes to each bag of the chips, and invited fans of either brand to use their mobile phones and sign up to fight in the “World’s Worst War” for that snacks brand against the rival. A simple massively multiplayer online wargame was created with 30 battlefields. Each new entrant to each army was given a rank of private, but then offered the chance to recruit new friends to join, and through such recruitments, gain promotion in the army and command larger numbers of troops.

The game had a battle every night and the gamers had to select where to go to influence the battle. The game became a big hit with over 100,000 active gamers daily. The campaign set up a mobile phone based 24 hour news channel which reported on war news, such as who had been promoted, who had died bravely in battle and which side was winning in which battles etc. The marketing campaign ran 6 months and produced an enormous buzz in the youth market, with teenagers collecting together on Mixi and Facebook to plan where to do battle the upcoming night, etc.

The most relevant lesson out of this, is that the brand is totally non-digital and of a very low cost item, yet it found a powerful digital marketing platform to allow fans of either snack to participate and promote that brand. The natural tool for the engagement marketing was the mobile phone as every teenager in Japan had a cameraphone with the ability to capture the 2D barcode, and then the internet browser and data plan, to be able to join the mobile multiplayer game.

The Obama campaign of 2008 was a pivotal political campaign for American politics in how intensely it adapted to and utilized social networking as a campaigning tool. Much has been written about the way Obama’s campaign communicated with Facebook and collected money with the internet and announced his VP choice by SMS text message.

A less understood and known part was the deliberate effort to drive voter turnout by using SMS text messaging. The national exit poll of 18,000 voters (the biggest survey sample of this year’s voting cyclem and conducted immediately after a person had voted, and is considered the most accurate measure of American voters) revealed that the Obama campaign had reached 26% of the total electorate, or 34 million people out of the approx 130 million who voted. The Obama campaign made a concerted effort to specifically get their supporters to provide mobile phone numbers, from asking supporters to get numbers, to giving free rock concerts only to supporters who had given a mobile phone number, to the announcement of VP choice Joe Biden via SMS. As the Obama campaign also was strongly youth-oriented, it is safe to assume most of the contacts were able to be reached by SMS text message. Several people on the Obama campaigns mailing list have reported that the SMS contacts were frequent and very relevant and personal, giving Obama’s suppoters a strong feeling of community and connectedness to their candidate.

The comparison with McCain’s campaign could not be more stark. Senator McCain’s supporters were far older, he himself far older than Obama. At the start of the campaign cycle, McCain was not even using email, while half way through the campaign, Obama was Twittering. The McCain campaign never made any concerted effort to gain mobile phone numbers of its supporters. Regardless, the McCain campaign did reach 23 million voters. Just by people who were contacted, Obama bested McCain by almost 3 to 2, a near 50% advantage.

But as Obama had mobile phone numbers, they could reach the voters also on election day. If a voter was contacted by calling the home landline phone, then it was very possible that on election day, the voter was at work or for any reason not at home. But everybody carries their mobile phone with them.

A bigger benefit is that there is a limit to how many human voice calls can be completed - either campaign could not hope to call every number they had, on election day. There are not enough volunteers to do this. But sending an SMS to every mobile phone was one mass-mailing event and only up to money, which the Obama campaign had massively more than McCain to begin with.

So for those who gave a mobile phone number to Obama, every one received an election day reminder at least via SMS. How did this work out in converting contacts to votes? Out of every contact that the McCain campaign had made, 60% actually voted for McCain. But out of every contact that the Obama campaign had made, 64% voted for Obama. This meant McCain received 14 million votes through its contacting campaign, but Obama received 22 million votes. So the total difference just on the contacts, netted Obama a gain of 8 million more votes. A margin of 8 million votes in an election of 130 million voters, is 6% out of the total victory margin. Obama’s total victory margin was 7%. Without a strong advantage in the get-out-the-vote campaign, Obama’s margin would have been only 1% and could easily have lost the election (like Al Gore who won the popular vote in 2000, but lost the election to Bush 2, due to the way votes are counted by states in the USA, not based on national vote).

One final point. A university study by two US universities, the University of Michigan and Princeton University, covering 4,000 voters, found that if an SMS reminder is sent to a voter, it increases the likelihood of voting by 4.2%. So going back to our numbers, ignoring all other good will that a continuous dialogue with the electorate would create during a two year campaign, on election day, if voters are sent a reminder, then that candidate gets 4% more of his supporters to show up and vote. If we take the 34 million voters and count 4.2% out of those, the direct benefit out of only adding SMS messaging to the communication mix, delivered Obama 1.4 million votes or 1.1% of the total votes cast. That margin delivered the states of North Carolina, Indiana and the one vote out of Nebraska’s 2nd district in 2008, or a total of 27 electoral votes out of Obama’s margin of 190 electoral college votes. In this election it was not ”necessary” as Obama won with such a large margin in any case, but the of the last 13 elections since 1960, three have been decided on a smaller margin than 1.1% including the Gore-Bush 2 election of 2000.