Chok! Chok! Chok! shakes up mobile
2013-02-28 22:27
Barcelona - A strange phenomenon hit Hong
Kong in late 2011.
As the clock hit 22:00 each night a Coca Cola ad aired on
television, prompting thousands of viewers to grab their phones
and start shaking them frantically to virtually "catch" the
falling bottle caps on the screen and win instant prizes.
Dubbed Chok! Chok! Chok! - meaning rapid motion in local
slang - the interactive campaign by McCann Worldgroup became a
hit, and sent viewers at home, in cinemas and in front of giant
outdoor screens into a frenzy.
Nine million people saw the ad - 380 000 downloaded the
Chok! Chok! Chok! app in the first month - and its success
indicates that marketers may be finally figuring out how to
direct adverts at consumers via mobile phones.
"The consumer is there so we as marketers start to
salivate," said Mike Parker, chief digital officer for McCann,
in an interview at the Mobile World Congress. "But people are so
underwhelmed by banner ads on tiny screens. We are all still
searching for the best way forward."
Mobile advertising is set to grow by more than 50% a
year over the period to hit $40bn in 2016, according to
Informa research, but the figures are still tiny compared to
television ads. Global ad spend in 2012 was $500bn.
Though advertisers are keen to harness the mobile boom, no
one has perfected the art of using mobile devices to target
adverts to consumers.
There remains a vast discrepancy between the amount of time
consumers spend on their mobile devices and the advertising
dollars companies spend there. In the US, mobile ads only
accounted for 1% of marketing spend in 2011, according to
the internet Advertising Bureau, even though people spent some
10% of their media time looking at their phones.
Mobile has long proved almost impenetrable for a host of
reasons, including the small screen, poor presentation of mobile
websites and consumers' resistance to the invasion of a space
seen as more private than a computer.
MapMyRun
Even Google, which dominates online search, is
still grappling with how to make money from ads on smartphones,
while Facebook is trying to weave marketing messages into
people's newsfeeds without offending them.
With many brands still wary of annoying consumers with lots
of tiny ads or repetitive text messages, some like Coca Cola hit
upon the idea of rewarding mobile owners with coupons, prizes or
free content as a way to make a connection.
Helping them make that link is Brian Wong, chief executive
of San Francisco-based kiip, a mobile app rewards network that
connects brands and companies with consumers. He says his start-up has found a winning formula - and that people have
contacted him to say thank you for the adverts.
"The rewards are a pleasant surprise for the user. It's like
a gift that comes out of the blue," Wong said.
In one campaign run via kiip by Pepsi, a person logging
their morning 5km jog on a fitness app like MapMyRun
sees a grey band pop up on the top of their smartphone screen.
If they click on it, a window appears: "What a workout! Refresh
yourself with a bottle of Propel Zero" and they are emailed a
coupon for the fitness drink to redeem at a local store.
Targeting such "moments of achievement", such as when a
gamer passes a level or a cyclist beats his personal best,
allows marketers to target people at opportune moments in ways
that are relevant to them, Wong says.
Kiip only gets paid if the customer redeems the reward and
as a result brands are willing to pay more for a system based on
results. Although Wong won't say how much kiip charges, it is
likely more than the average price for mobile ads, which in turn
are cheaper than ads on PCs. A perception that banner ads on
small screens are not very effective and the glut of available
space has kept prices capped at around $1 per thousand views.
Mobile's advantages
For mobile ads to become more effective - and lucrative -
marketers have to get more creative at tapping mobile's
advantages, such as the direct link to a person all day and the
location data.
The industry is also working on coming up with better
metrics to measure effectiveness of mobile ads, which could one
day boost their value.
One way to improve the effectiveness of mobile marketing is
to link up a person's web browsing history on computers with
their smartphone. Mark Strecker, the chief operating officer of
mobile advertising technology company Amobee, said companies
were in the early stages of such work.
For example, when a shopper walks into a retailer like the
Gap, their phone would know they had earlier looked at jeans on
the store's website from their home computer and send them
details about availability of their size.
The additional information about users also means agencies
now make fewer mistakes.
"If we see, from the location, that someone has gone to a
car showroom then we could send them car ads," said Dani
Cushion, executive at mobile ad platform Millennial Media.
"But if we see they go to the showroom every day, then they
probably just work there."
