Mobile users in Australia and the United Kingdom can get Jason Bourne on the phone just by pressing a few buttons.
Universal Pictures International is running print ads pushing “The Bourne Ultimatum” in both markets, encouraging fans to snap a photo of the ad and send the image to a short code. An algorithm technology confirms that the correct image has been sent, identifies the handset being used and responds with content-a movie trailer or wallpaper formatted for the device-or with a link leading the user to a wireless Web page.
“We receive a picture message from a user with a JPEG photo attachment, then we strip off that attachment and run it through our search database,” explained Russell Gocht, CEO of Mobot Inc. A Boston-area outfit, Mobot powers the service for Magnet Harlequin, a marketing and technology company in the United Kingdom.
“We have a growing database of images that (a submitted photo) could potentially match,” Gocht, continued. “If that incoming JPEG matches an image that’s been added to our database, we indicate that and drive the appropriate response back to the consumer.”
Growing trend
The campaign is one example of the newest trend in mobile marketing: encouraging users to interact with brands by sending photos or videos from their phones. London’s Craze Productions last week unveiled a service that allows music lovers to snap a shot of a CD in a retail store or on a promotional poster to receive ringtones, video clips, concert tickets or more details about an artist. Motorola Inc. teamed with House of Blues to entice fans to send their mobile photos to an LED board during concerts. And Ireland’s Alatto Tribes last year powered the country’s first interactive MMS effort, inviting users to send photos in support of the national rugby team.
Not only can MMS campaigns increase brand recognition and build customer loyalty, they offer a kind of de facto opt-in quality. Users are sent content, promotional materials or other come-ons only after they’ve submitted an image. The tactic contrasts starkly with “bluespamming,” where marketers automatically deliver content to any Bluetooth-enabled handset within proximity.
Barcodes for content
Other MMS campaigns employ barcodes on retail goods and promotional materials, allowing users to send a photo of the code to a server that “reads” the image and returns content or relevant information. The Wireless World Forum predicts that 70% of consumers worldwide will use mobile 2-D barcodes by 2009, using the technology as a way to discover content instead of manually surfing the mobile Internet.
“Mobile hyperlinks using 2-D barcodes, RFID and image recognition have revolutionized how consumers access mobile content in advanced mobile markets such as Japan and Korea,” World Forum Research analyst Jan Kuczynski said earlier this year. “Although it took four years for mobile hyperlinks to become truly mainstream in the Far East, we can examine how companies have been experimenting with mobile hyperlinks in advanced markets and shorten the learning curve. They increase traffic for content providers, they help marketers find out more about their audience, and, most importantly, provide a great consumer experience.”
Mobile barcodes still face substantial hurdles in Western markets, though. The act of taking a picture of a seemingly indecipherable image and submitting it via a phone is foreign to almost all consumers. And while a host of companies have experimented with the technology, a single standard has yet to emerge that would create a uniform user experience.
New tech reaching U.S.
And mobile barcodes-or any other form of MMS marketing, for that matter-are a particularly longterm play in the United States, according to Gocht. Carriers in Europe and elsewhere employ the MM7 protocol, he explained, which links to MMS platforms “reliably and with a first-class connection.” U.S. carriers, however, use e-mail technology for multimedia messages.
Widespread adoption of the MM7 protocol, which will introduce MMS short codes to the United States for the first time, will allow brands to deploy multimedia marketing campaigns with confidence, Gocht said. Until that happens, though, Mobot and others will focus on growing their businesses overseas.
“This is something we have tracked for several years, and we’ve had many false starts. We’re definitely in a wait-and-see mode as to the U.S. carriers and the seriousness of their intentions to make this work,” Gocht concluded. “My horizon has been a consistent six months for the past 12 months.”
