This week is about digital marketing and advertising. I wrote a piece about mobile advertising as a part of digital advertising.
People often experience advertisements as irritating, because they are often interrupting the consumers while connecting with their friends or playing games4. According to Gupta’s article people simply don’t like ads on their mobile devices. His research showed that smart phone users spend most of their time with apps, so he said the best way to reach and engage the consumers is by creating apps4. Besides the effectiveness it’s also more cost-efficient than many traditional ad-campaigns4
In the next two examples creative minds thought of an idea to advertise by creating applications.
Retailer Tesco had a grocery delivery business called Home Plus. They were number two in Korea and it was their challenge to become number one without increasing the number of stores. To accomplish this challenge they created virtual shops at the subway stations.
This video shows how the virtual shop works.
This in an example of a firm who created an app that was convenient, timesaving, unique and entertaining This strategy was attracting people’s attention and it made grocery shopping a fun thing to do. I turned out to be a huge success and within three months the new registered members had rose by 76%, the online sales increased by 130% and they became number 1 in Korea, so their mission was accomplished5.
The second example is Coca Cola and their ‘Send a free Coca Cola across the world and share a little happiness with someone you’ve never met’ campaign. Coca-Cola and Google created an app where you can send a Free Coke to someone you have never met somewhere around the world.
In this video they demonstrate the application.
Now you can save a stranger a bucket or two and share a little happiness.
Coca Cola and Google provided a social value to the application and they made it entertaining by adding the personal message and video. The results were amazing and the campaign was awarded the first Mobile Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions festival and they earned the title of Creative Marketer of the year. The weakness of this campaign is that it was a very expensive campaign. Although it does show the incredible power of the internet to connect people6.
Mobile advertising by creating apps has become one of the most powerful ways to advertise and with creative minds as in the examples above great success can be attained.
References:
4. For mobile devices think apps, not ads – Sunil Gupta
5. South Korean supermarket chain opens virtual grocery stores in subways – Jeffrey van Camp
6. Google buys the world a Coke via mobile ads – Michael Crider
