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.

Mywaves makes waves in the market

Mywaves, a mobile video site, has been making news recently. Especially, its partnership with MTV has got a lot of attention. Through this partnership, MTV will provide free, ad-supported mobile content to Mywaves site from its products like VH1, Jackass, Gametrailers, and Atom Entertainment. This is the first time MTV is offering free mobile content. Previously, the content was available only through network carriers and it required users to either go for the pay-per-view model or the subscription model.

Apart from MTV, Mywaves has got quite an impressive clientele with names like Microsoft, Mini, Paramount Pictures, Toyota, and more. Mywaves serves users with free mobile video content supported by ads. The ads range from text messages to banner ads, content discovery screens, and more. Interestingly, Mywaves came out of beta just about a year back and the kind of progress it has made has impressed a lot of people in the market.

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

0 comments.