Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.
Cuban-American mommy-to-be Gloria Dobal “loved everything” about online pregnancy site Baby Center. However, she had difficulty sharing the experience with family members who prefer Spanish. “My mother is from Cuba and I wanted her to enjoy this with me,” she said. After two days, Gloria switched to Baby Center En Espanol (www.babycenterenespanol.com) and its mobile version. Although the sector is still nascent, some brands and agencies are beginning to target Hispanics with mobile tools and campaigns.
The numbers suggest an attractive demographic for mobile marketing. Nielsen’s Q2 Mobile Advertising Report cites Hispanic data users as more likely (41% compared with 30%) to recall seeing ads on mobile phones and more likely (22% vs. 13%) to have responded. Moreover, according to ComScore m:metrics, Hispanics significantly over-index on mobile content consumption (71%) compared with the market average (48%). Brian Colbert, VP of mobile sales at ESPN, comments that in “all things mobile, the Hispanic audience over-indexes quite a bit.”
Ansible Mobile President Larry Harris (who previously ran multi-cultural advertising at Bank of America) advises “the most important best practice is to consider what’s in it for the consumer. The focus has to be on great content, integrated within an existing strategy and traditional DM at the local level.” Ansible worked with a variety of agencies on J&J’s mobile Spanish version of Baby Center (before there was even an English version) and attracted 4,000 active users, including Gloria Dobal. “Content is king,” says Larry. “Just offering a short-code is not enough.” The mobile program achieved opt-in retention of 93% last year and 85% this year.
Alberto Benbunan, of the Mobile Dream Factory, also emphasizes the consumer benefit. “Latinos like to be connected with their friends. Johnnie Walker wanted to drive more traffic to the point of sale in Salamanca, Spain for their loyal customers. We used the existing CRM system to encourage people with coupons to visit their local bar, where there was a machine installed that already knew your preference.” During the three-month period, more than 40% of those in the CRM system were active users, purchasing more than six drinks. Benbunan notes, “There is no cheap and expensive advertising, only effective advertising. This was a way to build loyalty with consumers who already knew the brand.”
Coors has leveraged mobile as a compliment to live events. During the campaign, they observed the importance of integrating mobile call-to-action with on the ground street teams. In a series of small venue bar/restaurant events in Hispanic target cities, attendees were asked to text and MMS to a screen, as well as to insert their own pictures on a green-screen background. These events were facilitated by the “Coors Chicas,” attractive and enthusiastic young women encouraging audience participation. In Denver (which is near Coors’ Golden, Colo., headquarters) participation results were 5 times greater than a similar event in New York City with significantly less “Coors Chicas” involvement.
Unlike other categories, brands that are indigenous to mobile, such as the network carriers and handset manufacturers, have an opportunity to upsell content usage. As a result, these companies have been among the most innovative in Hispanic mobile marketing. Chicago-based mobile marketing firm Vibes Media encourages a variety of mobile entertainment usage for client AT&T during the Inter-Liga events of Major League Soccer. David Gale, VP of business development for Vibes, emphasizes that “we see huge usage spikes with more repetition. In an intimate venue with nothing else to look at, we might see participation near 20%. That number will fall in the larger venues with 40,000 people to 1-2%. So it is important to condition adoption through repetition.”
Nokia proved their interest in demographic and geographic targeting with the purchase of Enpocket last year for a reported $150 million. David Kohl, head of U.S. sales at Nokia, notes that “our partner Sprint gives Nokia the richest, deepest targeting capabilities for on-deck advertising right now. We are already providing Hispanic-targeted ads.” The next wave of targeted mobile marketing may be upselling unique content. For its part, Sprint is “looking at advertising across the phone that would enhance customer experience and lower or eliminate the cost for additional content,” said Aaron Radelet, Sprint’s communications manager. Radelet cited original, exclusive content available during the Live Earth concert last year. “There was a short ad from Pepsi at the beginning of each free clip. This allowed us to show more content but at no extra charge.”
Univision is the largest media brand among U.S. Hispanics. According to Chris Brunner, VP of mobile content and services at Univision Movil, “each campaign must have a compelling call to action for the consumer, be promoted across all media (utilize all media impressions) and ultimately the program must be contextually relevant to the product or service being sold.”
Integrated cross-platform campaigns are packaged with demographically-relevant content like the award shows (Premio lo Nuestro, Latin Grammy, Premios Juventud, Nuestra Belleza Latina), Sports (F
