Mobile Marketing Leaders Since 1998
Press
Text-to-Screen Fever
April, 2009
The wait time in a stadium or theatre before a favorite team or artist comes up is yielding opportunities for brand interaction with near 100% user attention.
Before an artist such as Juanes or Shakira reaches the stage in a concert venue, their fans have already sent thousands of text messages from their mobile phones. Maybe it's a romantic note to Juanes himself, wishing he may spot someone in the venue; or they broadcast their feelings towards a partner; or tell friends about their location; or maybe send a code to win a cell phone or an autographed poster.
The unavoidable screens in venues where artists meet their fans are becoming an advertising medium.
Technology has allowed not only that those in the last rows can watch the details of their idol's performance, but also that they express their emotions (text-to-screen) or participate in contests (text-to-win) sponsored by an advertiser.
"In a concert, where you have a captive audience and giant screens, the most appealing are Text-to-Screen and Text-to-Win. But other interesting applications are also being launched, such as the game 'Where's the ball?', which can be done with the client's logos and inviting people to play for a prize," explains Ana Arredondo, Vibes' Segment Marketing Manager for the Hispanic market.
This mobile interactive marketing firm just signed a contract with The V5 Group, sister companh of event marketing company Viva Marketing Group. The group focuses on the US Latin market, especially in the Chicago area. The purpose of the agreement is to expand sponsorships of Hispanic events by including mobile marketing tools.
"Vibes is helping Viva Marketing create strategies that they can offer to advertisers that sponsor the concerts. Officially, we began our work by helping them out with the databases, a pivotal issue of event promotion. We are helping to create a communication strategy and segmented lists in order to direct people who like different types of music to the events that will take place," says Arredondo.
Once the user responds to a call-to-action message placed on a billboard or on a radio or TV ad (like "Send the word music if you want information about a music genre or an artist," for example), that user is then included in the database and you can now send messages before a particular event that takes place. Those messages represent additional opportunities to expand the mobile sponsorship, because at this point it is possible to include in them information such as "Sponsored by..."
"Through a call-to-action on all the media used to promote an event, we begin to generate user lists with their musical preferences. Later, a company such as Viva Marketing can sell that value added to sponsors when their brand is included in the messages," she adds.
Even though they are already working on this alliance, Arrendondo states that it is in early June when the partnership-which will enable Viva Marketing to offer pre-event, on-site, mobile marketing solutions to sponsors of their Hispanic events in Chicago and Midwest venues-will become effective.
About current demand for mobile solutions from the Hispanic market, Arrendondo states that more and more requests are coming in. "I believe that the crisis represents an opportunity. Mobile represents a great opportunity for advertisers to connect with their audiences at a low cost. We know of the potential of this market because of Hispanics' preference for mobile phones."
She believes this wave will swell, since new players have been joining recently. "As opposed to traditional media, we are now generating numerous proposals for brands that had never looked at mobile. Brands that didn't even have a line to try mobile on are now attempting it. We are currently developing a program for agency The San Jose Group. We are seeing more and more interest from Hispanic media because they are realizing that this is the market that most uses cellular phones. And mobile represents a great opportunity to connect with an audience at a low cost," concludes Arrendondo.