• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 17, 2008

Stella McCartney has tapped Baltimore*-based Millennial Media to step into its first mobile advertising campaign in North America, giving the luxury lifestyle fashion brand the ability to track consumers as they click from the ads through to the mobile site. The campaign, which debuted earlier this week, runs through January.

The luxury brand's foray into mobile marketing represents a clear step forward to reach tech-savvy consumers. The campaign also takes a critical step to integrate technology with traditional print, direct mail, in-store, point-of-purchase signage, channel marketing, and public relations.

While the mobile ads are static today, there has been some discussion of adding video of runway events during fashion shows, said Eric Eller, senior VP of products and marketing at Millennial Media. "The site runs on a custom channel, a subset of our overall network," he said.

Millennial Media created the campaign and mobile Web sites in one month. It is aimed at building broader awareness and consumer interest for Stella McCartney's spring and summer 2009 collections. Featuring signature pieces in the fashion line, the campaign targets modern, style-conscious shoppers in the United States.

Eller said data from the mobile campaign will provide insight into where the site traffic originates and the categories attracting consumers at higher click-through rates or more frequently. The data also will reveal the types of devices that consumers use to view the mobile ads. "We built a specific version for the iPhone, BlackBerry and other basic handsets," he said. "We expect the higher-end devices will garner more traffic for the campaign."

After the first click, once they get to the landing page, Millennial Media can track the length of time consumers spend with each page on the site, Eller said.

Millennial Media will have the ability to tell if consumers are spending more time browsing the spring or the summer line. Analytics also will track how consumers engage with the site through custom controls aimed at consumers with iPhones. They let consumers move graphics around the screen, rather than provide a "one-column top-down approach" that offers a list of text links taking the user from one page to the next.

The company would have liked to have integrated mobile video--such as runway footage--into this campaign, said Stephane Jaspar, Stella McCartney worldwide communications director. But research from Millennial indicated that the very consumers they are trying to reach with the effort still do not have high-end viewing capabilities on their mobile handsets, nor are they subscribed to a wireless carrier plan that allows them to do so.

"This is an issue for many consumer brands that engaged in mobile advertising," Jaspar said. "However, many of these same consumers do have access to the mobile Web, so by focusing on that component with this campaign, we are able to reach a much broader audience of female shoppers interested in Stella McCartney products." As mobile devices become more sophisticated, and as more video capabilities are added, the company will look to incorporate rich media into future mobile marketing efforts, she added.

Eller said the goal was not necessarily to increase sales, but rather extend the brand into the consumer's lifestyle, which often relies on a mobile phone to connect with friends and family.

For the launch of the campaign, a series of banner ads will display various mobile Web sites within Millennial Media's mobile ad network, which offers more than three billion monthly impressions across more than 2,000 sites.

The initiative offers shoppers a mobile store locator to pinpoint the closest Stella McCartney retail location, and a feature for subscribing to future news and information updates from the Stella McCartney brand.

The lifestyle luxury brand, a joint venture between Stella McCartney Ltd. and Gucci Group N.V., offers fragrance, eyewear, organic skin care, lingerie, a performance range with adidas, and travel products with LeSportsac.

*Editor's Note: Updates previous version.