At Visiongains Mobile Advertising & Marketing Awards Conference, Microsoft gave a run down on its recent experiments in mobile advertising. The particular focus was on Microsofts growing interest in eliminating separate budgets for “on-line” and “mobile” marketing, and instead creating a combined effort we could simply call “digital advertising”, as well as new Silverlight ideas.
Unfortunately I lost my notes for this particular presentation, so this one is all from memory:
2 screen campaigns:
Microsoft is very interested in the idea of exposing consumers to the same campaigns at their desk and on the move. The sweet-spots it’s trying to hit are the three major “away from desk, away from home” portions of the day: the morning and evening commutes, and lunchbreak.
The dream is this: a commuter who is chatting with friends over MSN on their mobile device in the morning should be exposed to the exact same advertising as when they log on to MSN on their desktop at the office (or, indeed, at home). Stats from Nieslen indicate that this kind of “2 screen” campaign can see the reach of an on-line advert extended by 13%. Microsoft has been very pleased with it’s results in the 2 screen, and is looking investing more heavily in the concept.
Silverlight:
The basic idea of Silverlight is that it is an enriched mobile website structure – allowing more complex media to be used in regular mobile browsing. The example that Microsoft showed, for crisp brand Doritos, was quite fun and imaginative. On visiting the Doritos site with a touch-screen device, you can “scratch” away a segment of the site like you would with a scratch card. This reveals whether or not you have won a free packet of Doritos. If you’ve won, your scratching will reveal a barcode that can be redeemed for a free packet at any store. The site also includes a location-based service that gives you directions to the nearest store – it even has a click-to-call feature so you can call ahead and see if they have Doritos in stock.
What we think?
I would actually be much more interested in the Doritos campaign than the 2-screen idea. The “digital advertising” idea is one that is gathering steam, with many media planners attempting to integrate the two. The problem here is that all of Microsofts data comes from campaigns run only on the Microsoft portal – and while they may get a decent amount of people, it’s ultimately a very limited test sample.
The Doritos “mobile scratch card” idea, however, really highlights the strengths of the mobile device. Combining barcodes, coupons, LBS and easy-to-use technology, it’s the kind of imaginative campaign that showcases what mobile advertising can achieve.
