PC maker Lenovo posted positive results with a mobile marketing campaign it used for branding.
The campaign, developed by OgilvyInteractive, New York, ran for four weeks in June. It had a click-through rate of 6.7 percent, compared with the mobile click-through average of 3 percent and online click-through average of .2 percent. The campaign also achieved a 188-percent increase in aided brand awareness and a 156-percent increase in product recall.
It was designed to reach Lenovo’s target audience of small-business decision-makers and build awareness of the company’s ThinkPad PC brand. Lenovo is a Beijing-based computer company that acquired IBM Corp.’s personal computing division last year.
The campaign also used an online survey to help Lenovo better understand how its target audience is using mobile technology. Questions related to the brand impact of the campaign, including aided awareness, message association and purchase intent.
“This is the first time a mobile campaign has been tested on branding measures,” said Maria Mandel, executive vice president-digital innovation group at OgilvyInteractive. It was Lenovo’s first U.S. mobile campaign.
The campaign featured a special offer that ran on WAP banners on Web sites such as USA Today, CBS SportsLine and Go2. The campaign ran on the Third Screen Media mobile network.
The offer was for savings on select Lenovo ThinkPad computers. Banner ads read: “ThinkPad sale,” and the landing page listed the offer as “Save up to $600 in combined savings on select models until 6/26/06.”
“The mobile banners, while highly impactful on the top of the page, didn’t really allow sufficient real estate to get a significant message across, but they did enable people to click through to a landing page,” Mandel said.
Obstacles to mobile marketing include penetration of Web-enabled mobile devices and understanding the usage habits and preferences of the target audience, Mandel said.
“This study helps remove some of those obstacles,” she said. “It is still a medium we need to continue to test with different offers and different ways of integrating mobile into the marketing and media plan.”
Kate Maddox is a reporter for BtoB, a sister publication of RCR Wireless News. Both publications are owned by Crain Communications Inc.
