Hollywood goes mobile big time

Last year, I wrote a post about Hollywood’s reluctance to use the most powerful marketing medium available today – the mobile phone. I distinctly remember comparing Hollywood with the Indian film industry and discussing how the latter managed to use the mobile phone successfully to promote movies and all that. However, it’s been a year now and a lot of things have changed in Hollywood.

It all started with Iron Man. Paramount Pictures signed a deal with LG and promoted the movie big time through mobile marketing campaigns. Lots of content was offered via mobile phones and users were thrilled to have a glimpse of the movie right on their mobile phone way before its release. LG even went on to release a special Iron Man phone which is the costliest phone to date, valued at around $2000.

The success of Iron Man’s mobile marketing campaigns prompted other major studios to go down the same route as well. So, Warner Bros. went down the mobile lane for three of its films – Speed Racer, Get Smart, and The Dark Knight. Especially, the mobile marketing campaigns created for The Dark Knight were phenomenally successful, just like the movie.

The mobile marketing campaign for Dark Knight included an interactive treasure hunt which directed the users to 25 bakeries in different parts of the country. Once they reached the bakery mentioned in the treasure hunt, they were delivered a cake parcel which had a Nokia phone. The users were asked to use the phone for more clues and stuff like that. The campaign was a huge success and it ended up preparing the audience for a blockbuster of a movie.

Apart from this, movies like The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones, Wall – E, and Kung Fu Panda were also aggressively promoted through mobile marketing campaigns this year. All of them were very successful. So, finally, one would assume that Hollywood has come of age and has realized the potential of the mobile phone as a marketing medium after all.

With a lot of high end phones hitting the market and new technologies being introduced, mobile marketing campaigns will become even more innovative and offer a rich experience to users in the future. Ultimately, the purpose of such mobile marketing campaigns is to generate a lot of hype and interest for the movie and bring people to theaters. So far, it’s been bang on target. Don’t you think?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

1 comment.

Mobile ads have better recall rates than TV ads

How do you judge the impact of an advertisement? How do you find out if it was effective or not? In most cases, you go by brand recall - the ability of the customer to recall your brand after being shown the ad a few times. Until now, TV was considered the best medium to place ads as it had the highest brand recall rates. But mobile advertising has simply changed everything.

According to reports from analysts, mobile ads have higher recall rates than TV ads. At the recent Mobile Advertising Degree conference, the representatives of Verizon Wireless emphasized the same fact. They also added that despite being costlier, mobile ads are preferred over online ads because they have a phenomenal click through rate.

This is incredible. I’ll explain you why. First, TV has a huge reach. Second, ads in TV are so common that people no longer consider them a problem. Third, a TV screen is more fit for rich ads and watching an ad on a TV screen could be actually fun.

Now, let me compare this with mobile phones. First, a mobile phone, until now, is not considered a primary advertising medium. Second, ads in mobile are considered intrusive by many, so you can’t expect mobile advertisers to start sending ads to all and sundry. Third, watching an ad on a mobile screen, especially a low end mobile phone’s screen, is not exactly a great experience.

Going by what I’ve said above, anyone can say that the odds are stacked against mobile advertising. But guess what? Mobile ads have a phenomenal click through rate of 2% and more, which is way better than online ads.

Now, just imagine. If these kinds of results are possible right now, what could be the case in future when we have more high-end mobile phones, richer ad formats, improved technology, and most importantly, an open-minded society which is not averse to mobile ads? All I can say is one word – unimaginable.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Vodafone acquires mobile social networking company ZYB

A not-so-popular Danish company called ZYB has been in the news for the past few days and a lot of websites are talking about this company fervently. Just what is this ZYB and what has it done to garner such an attention? Simple. It got acquired by Vodafone for approximately $50 million.

Here’s a little something on ZYB. It stated off as a backup service for mobile phones in 2006. The service, which is still available free of cost, allows you to save your mobile phone contacts and other information in ZYB’s servers. In the event of losing your mobile phone or losing the data in your mobile phone, this can be really helpful.

Now, back in 2008, the company has made an important change in the service and has turned it into a mobile social network. Now, you can have a separate profile page in this social network, just like you have one in Facebook, MySpace, and Orkut. You can add photos, add friends, send comments, and build your network easily.

Vodafone, by acquiring ZYB, has shown everyone which way the market is going and I’m sure we can see plenty of big players go the same way soon.

The concept of social networking on mobile phones, or mobile social networking, has been catching up with people big time and a lot of companies have realized its imminent potential. The result – you have plenty of strategic partnerships. I’ve already blogged about mobile social networking and how it can become the next big thing and incidents like this just reaffirm my faith time and again.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile Social Networking.

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Mobilizing sites could be the key in future

Mobile surfing, surfing the web on mobile phones, has been on the rise lately. It has been assessed that around 14% of mobile users surf the web regularly and this number will increase sharply over the next few years. Now, mobile internet is not an alien term to most of you guys and you’ve been hearing this quite often, right? But the issue I’m going to bring up is something different. It’s about the traffic generated by mobile surfing.

A recent report from Nielson says that a lot of companies have seen an increase in their website’s traffic on an average of 13% due to mobile surfing. This is an incredible number, to say the least.

The report also says that some websites had a pretty sharp increase in traffic as a lot of mobile users tend to surf those sites on the go very regularly. Can you guess what kind of websites they’re talking about? It’s a no-brainer. Weather sites and entertainment sites are the most accessed ones via mobile internet and the traffic to these sites increased by 22% due to mobile surfing.

In case of other websites, the increase in traffic has not been drastic, but noticeable nevertheless. However, the report says that this will change soon as more and more people are now accessing the net through their mobile phone.

In my opinion, this brings up the topic of mobile websites again. The question of whether or not a company should have a mobile website has been asked many a time, but there has not been any satisfactory answer. However, I’ve always claimed that mobile websites can change the way you connect with your customers and can actually help you interact with your core user base better. Now, this report reflects my thought too.

Just imagine, if you found out that more than 30% of your site’s traffic came from mobile phones, wouldn’t you be hard-pressed to mobilize your site to make it easier for them to access it through their mobile phones? Also, viewing a standard website on a mobile phone, as I’ve said many times before, can be a clumsy experience sometimes. A mobile site with a mobile-friendly interface which loads very quickly will make it easier for mobile users to access it via their mobile phone. This, in return, can result in an increase in your site’s overall traffic.

While this idea might be applicable for all websites, it’s absolutely necessary for some websites which are regularly surfed by mobile users. Entertainment, travel, weather, movies, maps, news, and banking sites are the most popular websites among mobile users and mobilizing these sites is a great idea.

The content of this report is not surprising for me at all, for there have already been instances where I could sense the immense potential of mobile sites. In case you’re new to this site, I urge you to read this, this, and this. In my opinion, this is a glimpse at the future. The question is, are you ready?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

1 comment.

Watch what you say about Apple

Regular readers of this blog might know that I’m not exactly a politically correct person and I say just what I want to say. I’ve written for and against a lot of issues regarding mobile phones, mobile phone advertising, and other things. But from now on, I shall restrain myself when I write about Apple iPhone. Or anything Apple for that matter. Not that I’ve changed my writing style or taken a course on political correctness or something. I read the New York Times today. Dan Mitchell had something to say about Apple fans and their so called ‘thin skin.’ Read it and decide it for yourself.

Categories: Rant, Apple iPhone, All things mobile phones.

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