• by Mark Walsh , March 1, 2007

In a mobile campaign launched last November for the Ford Edge crossover, a higher proportion of visitors to the mobile site viewed a promotional video clip than on the vehicle's traditional Web page.

The ongoing campaign created by mobile marketing company Enpocket for Ford has also generated hundreds of thousands of content downloads a week, including the video and Ford Edge screensavers.

"We're seeing higher engagement on the mobile device than through the brand experience online," said Enpocket CEO Mike Baker.

While he wouldn't disclose any detailed results of the Edge campaign, Baker said the higher level of engagement reflected in the video downloads appears to be a growing trend.

"What we're seeing in the last year is that the mobile device is becoming its own channel," he said. "People are using mobile phones to access the Internet, so that gives birth to a second entry point for marketers."

A study released this week by the Pew Internet Project found that a quarter of U.S. Internet users now access the Web via a mobile device.

MindShare-Team Detroit, Ford's mobile marketing agency, selected Enpocket to create the mobile site, alerts, wallpapers and videos to help drive traffic to the Ford site at http://ford.enpocket.com.

Enpocket has also gotten promotional muscle from newspaper and billboards nationally that include a mobile "short code" consumers can use to link to the Ford Edge mobile site and with ad banners on the wireless Web.

The target is the coveted 18- to-34-year-old demographic.

"We're seeing interest from Ford and other brands that really want to reach that elusive younger consumer who doesn't want to be advertised to as much" through traditional venues, said Baker. He added that the Edge mobile promotion is now being rolled out abroad in Europe, and possibly Asia and South America as well.