Expanding its push into the mobile space, video ad network Tremor Media said Tuesday it will offer HTML5 support for its interactive video ad units. The HTML5 format for publishing and delivering ad-supported Web video has been championed in particular by Apple Inc. as an alternative to the Adobe's pervasive Flash technology. The company has all but banned the use of Flash on the iPhone, iPad and other Apple devices on the grounds that the latest version of the HTML programming language provides superior performance and reliability. To that end, Tremor will launch HTML5-compatible formats initially for the iPad before expanding the service to other devices including the iPhone and Android-based mobile phones by year's end. "With the introduction of the Apple iPad, publishers have a new mobile platform in which to reach a highly engaged audience," said Charles Parra, vice president of product management for Tremor. With the move, the New York-based company will extend HTML5 support through its flagship Acudeo platform, which powers in-stream video advertising for some 2,000 Web publishers. Tremor is also working closely with long-standing partner Brightcove to ensure that its HTML5 formats can be easily integrated by the Web video provider's clients. "By working closely with partners like Brightcove, we continue to provide our advertisers with the most engaging ad opportunities across any device, and our publishers with the best solution to monetize their mobile video content," said Tremor CEO Jason Glickman. Brightcove is among various online video and mobile companies that announced support for the HTML5 standard earlier this year in connection with the launch of the iPad this spring. The emerging video format got a big boost at the start of the year when Google added HTML5 support for playback of YouTube videos. Mobile ad networks such as JumpTap and Greystripe have also gotten on the HTML5 bandwagon. While other networks may serve HTML5-based ads, Parra argued that Tremor's existing Acudeo platform would offer a greater ability to track campaigns and provide ad verification to publishers, advertisers and agencies. In addition to standard pre-roll units, HTML5 support will extend to more advanced formats including its vChoice & vChoice iRoll units that give users more control over the types of ads they see. Tremor ranked as the second-largest online video property behind Hulu in July based on the number of in-stream ads served, with nearly 452 million -- reaching 19% of the U.S. population, according to comScore. In April, Tremor raised an additional $40 million in venture funding, bringing its total to $82 million. Given that war chest, Glickman indicated the company is not ruling out a potential acquisition to accelerate its move into mobile video advertising. "We see mobile as a big deal in the years to come," he said.
Kraft Foods is joining with hunger relief organization Feeding America to kick off "Huddle to Fight Hunger," an integrated marketing campaign with the goal of donating at least 20 million meals. Celebrities including football legend Joe Montana, sports journalist Erin Andrews and chefs Pat and Gina Neely are featured on the Kraft Web site promoting the cause: www.HuddleToFightHunger.com. The campaign will culminate in San Francisco on Jan. 9 with the first-ever Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl featuring college football teams from the WAC and PAC-10. Marketing includes consumer incentives, cinema, newspaper and magazine ads, and public relations, as well as social and mobile activities. In addition, Kraft Foods is working with over 40 food retailers nationwide to implement unique in-store displays and programming. Consumers can visit the microsite to learn about the ways they can help fight hunger. For each person who joins the "Huddle" on the site, Kraft Foods will donate one meal donation to his or her local Feeding America food bank. The company is providing additional meals to Feeding America in honor of Americans who redeem Huddle to Fight Hunger coupons that will be available online and in newspapers nationwide on Aug. 22 and Sept. 26. For every coupon redeemed, Kraft Foods will donate one additional meal to Feeding America. Featured brands includes Planters nuts, Oreo cookies, Ritz crackers, Kool-Aid beverages, Oscar Mayer meats, Maxwell House coffee and Kraft cheese products. These brands will support the Huddle to Fight Hunger program throughout the season, and some brands will have their own marketing initiatives to donate additional meals to Feeding America, above and beyond Kraft Foods' 20-million-meal goal. Ritz and Oreo will feature special football-shaped crackers and cookies this fall and each brand will give up to 500,000 meals to Feeding America. During September and October, various Kraft cheese products will carry on-pack stickers offering an opportunity to give five meals to Feeding America. In addition, Oscar Mayer, Kool-Aid, Maxwell House, Planters and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese will be offering special coupons and incentives throughout the fall to join the fight. Fighting hunger is not the cause du jour for Kraft Foods; the food company has partnered with Feeding America for decades. Kraft Foods will also serve as the premiere partner for Feeding America's Hunger Action Month, which will kick off in September to raise awareness about hunger in America.
AT&T is getting in on the social gaming craze by partnering with game startup SCVNGR to launch a rewards program built around goofy challenges that let users win points for redemption at the carrier's stores. The initiative kicks off at more than 50 AT&T outlets across the Midwest that will promote SCVNGR in connection with the launch of the new Samsung Captivate phone. Through the SCVNGR app, available for the iPhone and Android-based Droid, users will be eligible for three types of rewards: two points will earn a free ringtone, five points will win 20% off accessories like a Bluetooth device, and racking up 15 points will translate into $50 off the Captivate. The challenges to gain points include doing silly things like suggesting substitutes for your friend's annoying ringtone, taking a photo of a friend with a Captivate phone in an AT&T store, or simply checking in at a store. SCVNGR recently also introduced the "social check-in," which lets a group of friends tap their phones together to check in to the same place. Once someone has earned enough points to claim a reward, the SCVNGR app shows a screen on the phone instructing the cashier on how to provide the discount rather than having to present a printed coupon. "By building on SCVNGR to bring the mobile-social experience to customers right in our store locations, we are able to engage and reward them in exciting new ways," said Hardmon Williams, vice president and general manager for AT&T Mobility and consumer markets in Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska, in a statement. For two-year-old SCVNGR, the deal with the nation's second-largest wireless carrier is a coup. The Cambridge, Mass.-based startup has previously teamed with teen retail chain Journeys on a gaming-based rewards program and raised nearly $5 million to date from partners including Highland Capital Partners and Google Ventures. Seth Priebatsch, SCVNGR's founder and "chief ninja," said there are no plans currently to expand the new AT&T promotional effort beyond the Midwest, "but we'd obviously be excited to roll it out nationally." But he added that SCVNGR is now rolling out its Rewards feature nationally, starting in Boston and Philadelphia. The first 50 small businesses in each city that want to start building rewards on SCVNGR will get to do so for free, rather than paying the usual fee of $500 to $1,000 per year.
The boundary between outdoor advertising and mobile media is becoming increasingly blurry, as players from both sides experiment with strategies that integrate elements of each. This week brings the unveiling of a partnership between Clear Channel Airports -- which specializes in place-based advertising targeting air travelers -- and Geodelic, which incorporates location service technology into mobile apps, to produce FLYsmart, a free location-based app for air travelers. The new service shows users nearby retailers, restaurants and other destinations. FLYsmart lets them find services and amenities in terminals, including newsstands, gift shops and restaurants. The app also offers maps of terminal concourses, live feeds of arrival and departure information and information for hotels and services around the airport. The app is currently available for Apple iPhones; versions for Android and BlackBerrry smartphones should be available later this year. The launch airports include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago's O'Hare, Dallas Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco and Seattle. Smaller airports will come online each week. Ron Cooper, CEO of Clear Channel Outdoor, stated: "By leveraging our vast airports network, latest digital technologies and the power of mobility, we're creating compelling and exciting ways for brands to engage and reach new audiences." Airports are hot spots in the convergence of mobile, out-of-home and Internet advertising. Earlier this summer, IBM launched an ad campaign -- running through Sept. 24 -- on the theme of "Smarter Cities," including a large interactive display at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Installed in American Airlines Terminal 8, the display will be visible to many of the roughly 700,000 airline passengers per month served by American at JFK. The unit also features a rotating ticker with a text to mobile call to action feature. Two years ago, JetBlue installed interactive video screens at the gates of its new terminal at New York's JFK Airport, which allow travelers to order food for delivery from airport dining options if they can't leave the gate. Overall, there are 200 such screens around Terminal 5 in the JetBlue digital network, called Re:vive. It was designed by New York's Deepend for OTG Management.
One of the most promising extensions of existing media to mobile has to be out-of-home. In fact, I wonder if eventually mobile marketing and advertising will be seen under the digital OOH category. I have already heard some agency executives talk about conceptualizing the mobile display and app platforms as extensions of their OOH strategy. Increasingly, as it uses location-based solutions, mobile feels less like a remote extension of the Web and something closer to being another screen in an out-of-home network, albeit a screen that is never predictably fixed. And so it is heartening to see Clear Channel's new and very smart branded app for travelers. The iPhone FLYsmart app maps well against Clear Channel's billboard presence in airports nationwide. The app is a traveler's ready resource for most problems and questions that come up in an airport. What are the flight schedules and latest flight updates? How do I get from Concourse A to Concourse B? Where are the bathrooms? Where the hell am I? The app is the result of a partnership between Clear Channel Advertising (CCA) and LBS-powered directory and media platform Geodelic. The app locates you in the airport and reveals the surrounding resources through maps or listings in various list or carousel formats. Geodelic has other apps for the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Santa Monica with the same base technology. But the FLYSmart app is especially elaborate, as it layers in live feeds of flight information and localized data about the city you are in. The project launches with ten major U.S. airports covered and a BlackBerry version in development. While on the one hand it is a branded app, provided by Clear Channel, CCA is not a consumer-facing company and so its real value comes in extending the CCA ad network itself. The potential for seamlessly extending onto handsets the digital display CCA already deploys seems to me enormous. I am sure the first step is just recruiting the restaurant and newsstand franchises that are interested in advertising and marketing into the handset. And this would be valuable, especially for proximity marketing. My suspicion is that people in airports, frustrated and in a hurry, would be more amenable to marketers pushing offers, coupons and easy solutions to them than they might be elsewhere. But even more promising to me is the way in which OOH advertising could become more interactive. Outdoor digital displays could work in sync with handhelds. The phone could serve as a second screen and as a delivery mechanism for offers from the digital display. If the digital display network and handheld app are working in unison, then marketers who buy enormous presence within a given location would be iterated across screens. Talk about "run of site."