• by Wayne Friedman , April 12, 2010

TV stations are moving ahead with more mobile TV test efforts. The latest is a special public service announcement of an anti-drunk driving campaign debuting around July 4.

Starting around the Independence Day holiday, local TV stations in the Washington, D.C. market will transmit messaging from the Ad Council's new campaign "Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving." This time of year, along with the last week in December, alcohol-impaired-driving incidents spike and fatalities climb.

One of the campaign's most unusual features is when mobile phone users are changing channels on their mobile device. That's when an interstitial ad will take over the mobile screen for a few seconds.

The switch is in addition to a "Buzzed Driving" 30-second spot, which can be seen as a user watches a station's broadcast on their phones. Also, there will be "Buzzed Driving" banner ads on the channel guide screen that will allow the user to click to a Web site.

Abby Auerbach, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at TVB, stated: "This Mobile DTV application is an additional demonstration of the wide variety of advertising options offered by local broadcast television stations."

For the past six years, The Ad Council and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have partnered with TVB to create an industry "roadblock" in which hundreds of local broadcast television stations donated airtime for the TV spots between Christmas and New Year's Eve.

Auerbach says the mobile component adds to the campaign, which has expanded to include Web ads, digital channels and text messaging from traditional spots.