Mobile

Your classic old-school impulse buy: you see a Kit Kat at the checkout line and you help the retailer make a few easy pennies. The impulse buy of the future? You hear a song on the radio and whip out your cell phone to buy it with a text message. Amazon's TextBuyIt platform enables just that. You can now send a text to "AMAZON," and input the name of a product. Amazon returns options with a purchase code for each. Text back with the code, confirm your Amazon account, and voila!, your package is soon on its way. I'm envisioning major co-op opportunities here. Incorporate a "buy code" with a video ad, and phone users could complete a purchase in less than a minute. Ka-ching!

Nickelodeon has just released three new casual games for cell phones. Online, it continues to roll out easy branded games. Nickelodeon claims an industry leading 25 million unique visitors each month to its gaming sites, and it's planning to roll out as many as 600 new games. And why not? With the government keeping an eagle eye on all TV advertising targeted toward kids, games (for now) allow a little more freedom. And fun.

Advertisers and wireless carriers are eager to start serving up mobile advertising. But how are they going to get wireless subscribers to play along? Bribes. But they have to be better bribes. The Silicon Alley Insider says that one free minute for every 30-second ad isn't close to enough.

As we all know, mobile marketing is finding it hard to gain traction. So you have to admire the strategy of Akoo, which in one campaign model, it's hitching its start to the digital signage express. Akoo is setting up a digital screen network that consumers can manipulate with the cell phones. Phone users can send text commands to screens in airports and bars, and effect what content will play. In return the screens send the phones ad messages - sometimes in the form of coupons for the very establishment you're in.

The Law & Order franchise -- which has long published made-for-computer games -- has now developed a new game for mobile. Not only does the program enjoy the heavy branding, it also enjoys the 6.99 price tag. True, few gaming companies will grow wealthy at 6.99 per. But Law & Order isn't a gaming company, it's a TV show. As with Nike and its $30 t-shirts, Law & Order has figured out a way to let its fan base help pay for its branding.

Nigel Hollis describes attending a session on mobile advertising, and noticed a recurring theme. All but one of the examples used some form of incentive. How long, Hollis wondered, before mobile users were trained to look for the best offer rather than their favorite brand?

Vans, a skateboard outfitter and provider of parks, is doing some advertising made for the iPhone. More to the point, it's providing a branded video game. The game includes two buttons, positioned on the iPhone screen just like you'd deploy fingers if using a fingerboard. Most boarders have fiddled around with those, so the game might stir a little nostalgia, while keeping the Vans logo front and center. Well, top left, actually.

Because of the difficulty in measuring success of mobile campaigns, combined with the confusing abundance of forms, most advertisers haven't ventured much beyond the test stage, says John du Pre Gauntt, a senior analyst with eMarketer. For the most part, he adds, "98 cents in the dollar of this market is experimental dollars."

Relevantis is putting advertising on the map -- literally. The advertising company has introduced a platform that plots brand logos and icons onto interactive maps. Phone numbers, directions and coupons are popular click-through creatives for now, but video should hold lots of promise here. You're navigating an unfamiliar downtown, so you check your phone map for clues. You see an attraction icon, and click! Instant tour. I'm sold sight unseen.

A sixteen-hundred square foot video screen will always attract some attention -- even in Times Square. But now application vendor LocaModa is teaming up with Clear Channel Outdoor for a fully interactive signage campaign. LocaModa's first application is a word jumble game that invites mobile users to submit answers by texting. Winners get the satisfaction of seeing their names on the big screen. Advertising appears to be taking an early back seat while the jumble clearly illustrates concept.