Executive Interview: Maria Mandel

WPP Group’s Ogilvy & Mather has helped build some of the world’s highest-profile brands during its 60-year history, and subsidiary Ogilvy Interactive is known as one of the leading advertisers in new media. Maria Mandel, executive director of digital innovation for Ogilvy New York, has helped deploy mobile marketing campaigns for Cisco Systems Inc., DHL and Dove, among others.We spoke with the graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School about where mobile advertising fits in the broader realm of digital marketing, and about the advantages-and potential pitfalls-of targeting consumers through their phones.
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How much of your time is spent on mobile marketing today as opposed to all the other platforms you work with?
More and more, mobile is becoming a key area of focus-not just for myself and my team, but certainly from a global perspective. It’s one of the fastest-growing media channels we look at.
What are brands looking for when it comes to mobile marketing? Do they know, or do they want you to tell them?
Mobile right now is a challenge. I think most marketers are still a bit confused about the space and how to manage a mobile marketing campaign. Is it a relationship management tool, or should it be used to build a brand? Or is it a channel to direct promotions and drive interactions with the brand? It’s really difficult for a lot of people to make sense of the marketplace.
A lot of marketers want to jump into the sexier types of things, like mobile video, location-based marketing, and targeting-the things that the press is talking about and what’s to come in mobile, but not necessarily what’s here and now. I think it’s the role of the agency to bring some perspective. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be test-piloting new and emerging areas, but we need to understand what’s here today.
What are the advantages and disadvantages mobile has over other platforms?
I think it will evolve over time as consumers’ mobile behavior evolves. Right now, the key for a lot of our clients is that the mobile device opens up tremendous potential. They say it’s one of three things you take every time you leave home, along with your wallet or purse and your keys. And it could replace your wallet, and eventually replace your keys.
It really is this killer channel to reach people with, but it’s also a very personal channel. You have to understand that what you’re providing through this channel has to matter to the consumer. And they have to be receptive to getting something on their phones.
As a board member of the Mobile Marketing Association, what steps have you seen the wireless industry take to help ensure the growth of mobile advertising? What else needs to be done?
I think the MMA has been a great organization in bringing together the carriers, the content providers and the advertisers to create standards; to actually helping marketers figure out how to use this space. . Certainly, having some advertising standards in the industry has gone a long way in having advertisers start to deploy ad campaigns via the mobile Web.
Right now, the key areas are to bring more marketers and advertisers on board, and to begin testing more (kinds of campaigns).
Mobile insiders can’t stop talking about potential advertising revenues, but the broader advertising industry seems less enthusiastic about the possibilities of mobile marketing. A recent Advertising Age column claimed the “Rush to mobile marketing will lead only to fool’s gold.” Is there a disconnect between the wireless industry’s view and the expectations of those outside mobile?
I think in any emerging area, whether it’s advanced TV, digital signage or mobile, you go to industry events and you’re dealing with a select crowd. I think it’s natural to have that disconnect; I think you have that in a lot of channels. I think mobile will evolve, but how it evolves will be determined.
My personal take is that we need to make sure we’re leveraging the channel to the fullest potential and not looking too far ahead. I spend a lot of my time tempering expectations.
Scott Berg, Hewlett-Packard’s worldwide media director, recently predicted a consumer backlash against mobile marketing tactics that could lead to legislation. How real is that threat?
You have to have common sense. You have to center on the consumer, and you have to use the channel in a way that’s going to provide utility to the consumer.
We ran a campaign where we offered up a five-day weather forecast delivered by DHL. People would text in to receive a weather alert. Also, mobile games seem to be growing in popularity, so we created a branded DHL game called Stack It. It was like Tetris, but players stacked DHL packages. We provided (instructions on how to access the content) where people had downtime, in bus shelters, taxicabs, etc. It’s a way to build brands that is very opt-in; it builds engagement. I think it really is about giving something of value.
What other campaigns seem to have resonated with consumers?
Real Beauty (an effort from Unilever’s Dove brand) had this global campaign. They challenged people to get them to respond to a debate about what is “real beauty.” We took a picture of a 96-year-old woman, posted it in Times Square and asked, Is she wrinkled or wonderful?
Again, it’s a different type of utility; it gives people the ability to respond right there and then (from their mobile phones). Voting works really well. All of these examples are showing an ad that’s not necessarily annoying on your phone.
Online advertisers have suffered the wrath of consumers for pop-up ads, interstitial messages and other tactics. Are there any mobile marketing strategies that might elicit a similar response from users?
One thing I think you’ll start to see evolve, like we’ve seen on the Internet, is backlash against pre- and post-roll. (Video clips that are inserted before or after the content a Web surfer is trying to access.) Instead, marketers might have a targeted link or a banner that then links to the video. Instead of pushing that at consumers, it would be getting them to choose to engage with it.
As an adjunct professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business, what have you observed about how young adults use their phones?
When you look at some of the younger consumers, they’re not inhibited by the technology. They don’t really pay attention to “How do I do this or that?” To them, it’s really about the mobile phone and what it allows them to do. They’re starting to use their mobile device as a part of their lives. They text message more than they speak on the phone.
A lot of the things like social networking we see starting to migrate to the mobile device, and I think that’s going to be a big area moving forward, just as it has been online. Also, mobile content is really becoming big-everything from mobile games, video content, viral video. . I think a lot of what you’re starting to see in the online space is starting to move to mobile.
The online advertising space is consolidating quickly with billion-dollar acquisitions, and AOL recently shelled out a reported $275 million for Third Screen Media. How will the mobile and online advertising industries evolve with the traditional advertising space over the next five to 10 years?
(Laughing) Let me pull out my crystal ball! I think there will be consolidation, no question. I really think it’s interesting: the way mobile seems to be developing is reminiscent of the way the Internet developed. But I think the key difference is that there was a lot of learning required on the Internet. I think in some ways, mobile will develop more quickly (because of the lessons learned online). I think it’s key to see how the technology platforms develop.
I think mobile will be a key media channel. In five years I think it might be a question of whether it’s going to be the third screen or whether it starts to be the second screen. Or maybe, 15 years from now, the first screen.