At OMMA Mobile: It's Time To Market Up Close, Personal

Mobile media sellers speaking at Thursday's OMMA Mobile conference in New York City agreed that advertisers need to step out on a limb a bit and experiment with marketing--not merely advertising--on handheld digital devices.

Panelists--including Lisa Hsia, senior vice president/new media at Bravo; John Zehr, senior vice president/digital media at ESPN; Doug Busk, vice president/industry relations at SinglePoint, an interactive TV solutions company, and Jeff Miller, president of interactive media shop Telescope--said they have the numbers to show that mobile media is ready for prime time.

Hsia pointed to some of Bravo's mobile digital programs over the past two years to show how it can be done. The company ran mobile programs around "Project Runway" and "Top Chef," for instance. "We decided to ask people [via mobile text] who should choose to win "Project Runway." We got thousands of responses." She says participants were generally young and wealthy.

Per ESPN's Zehr, the mobile market skews younger, through age 45 and female. Hispanic and ethnic in general skews higher, but not dramatically. "And mobile reach integrated with TV reaches much wider audience than you might think," he said.

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Bravo is currently tapping that demo with a mobile fan club for "Project Runway." That program involves asking consumers to text questions. "We got tens of thousands of messages, an 80-90% response rate," said Hsiu.

She said the goal is to figure out how to monetize that engagement. "For L'Oreal, we are offering the ability, when you see a moment on Bravo in which a L'Oreal product is being used, to send an instant SMS for a coupon. It's added-value if I can prove a high level of engagement."

Miller says Telescope is working on, among others, a mobile-media program for "Make Me a Supermodel," one of Bravo's programs. Wireless company Alltel is sponsoring the company's text-vote for viewers' favorite supermodels.

Miller explains that Telescope is sending customized or personalized responses to those voters: Alltel subscribers will get a message up-selling them; others are up-sold to various mobile products.

Morgan Guenther, CEO of AirPlay Network, says the key to appealing to advertisers is the vendor's ability to aggregate its audience. "The people who get excited about certain programming, they are watching it on TV. But if we could take that capability, aggregate that audience and wrap mobile connectivity around it, if we connect them and create community experience in real time, that's the next stage."

Guenther says advertising and sponsorship for AirPlay's programs wrap into what's happening on TV. He says the company, which runs mobile marketing programs around broadcasting of NBA basketball--did such a program with Bud Light last year, and with Samsung during NFL playoffs. Guenther says both involved live ad spots synchronized with ads on mobile. "It's experimental, but the real value is bringing people back to live TV."

Doug Busk, vice president/industry relations at SinglePoint, a supplier of interactive TV solutions, agrees that the key to successful mobile marketing integrated with traditional media is "transforming viewers into active participants in shows."

To get advertisers on board is another challenge. "Advertisers should be more open to experimentation. This is really a period of experimentation, but I'm being held to the same standard as Web, and I don't have the metrics yet," says Bravo's Hsia.

But, says Telescope's Miller, the sheer number of potential targets is too big to justify putting mobile at the bottom of the media list. "Particularly if you leverage it with TV. We are seeing a billion interactions each year from Telescope alone. The scale is here--depending on one's marketing objectives, at a minimum you will get guaranteed impression."

Says ESPN's Zehr: "We want to steer the conversation away from the idea that 'this is Web on the phone.' What advertisers don't always get is that it's a small screen, but it's a focused screen. You can deliver the valuable message if you do it in the right way. It's also very personalized and location-based, etc. So if you can deliver targeted messages, the value proposition on mobile will get dramatic."

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