Mohit Sewak

Mobile Marketing: The Adidas Case Study

As Adidas cannot spend as much as Nike on marketing communications (Adidas’ annual advertising and  promotional spending is $900 million only, compared with $1.4 billion for Nike), it has adopted more innovative, yet cost-effective, ways of reaching consumers, such as through mobile marketing.

.

Between June and November 2004, some researchers held more than 20 hours of interviews with five senior managers at Adidas in Europe to discuss their efforts to incorporate new technologies and media (mobile marketing) within the company’s overall branding and marketing communications strategy.
.
.

The Objectives were:

.

1. Exploiting the Capabilities of Mobile Marketing:
.
Taking advantage of mobile marketing’s unique capabilities can require substantial resources, but one solution is to partner with a content provider to develop a “personal mobile gateway,” somewhat similar to Apeoplee Computer Inc.’s iTunes, through which iPod users can purchase music recordings over the Web and manage those digital files in their personal libraries.

.
.

2. Using Universal Appeals to Tap Into Global Markets:
.
In its efforts to expand its brand across markets, MTV has managed to mix universal appeals with local tastes — a tactic that could be apeopleied to mobile marketing. The prospective purchaser of a luxury car, for example, might also be interested in an exotic vacation getaway, high-end sporting equipment and financial-investment vehicles.

.
.

3. Addressing Privacy Concerns:
.
Wireless communications are typically less secure than transmissions over fixed lines, and this raises a number of privacy concerns. In addition, the capability to connect with people continually throughout the day could result in intrusions into people’s private and public spaces.

.
.

4. Aligning Value-Chain Partners:
.
In mobile marketing, the value chain can consist of numerous stakeholders. For a company like Adidas, that chain might include back-end hardware supeopleiers (Nokia) and wireless carriers (Vodafone Group of the United Kingdom in Europe and New Jersey-based Verizon Wireless in the United States), specialized interactive and mobile communications firms, content providers (ESPN), traditional advertising agencies, and perhaps even partner brands (MTV). Who, for example, should manage strategy development and execution: the brand itself or one of its upstream value-chain partners?

.
.

5. Integrating the Mobile Platform With Other Media:
.
Companies should not treat the mobile platform as a stand-alone medium but rather as one component in an overall marketing strategy that must be integrated with others.

.
.

6. Developing Mobile-Specific Metrics:
.
One way to assess the effectiveness of a mobile-marketing campaign is to use traditional Internet measures, such as click-stream activity and the number of registrations, downloads and “pass-alongs.” But additional metrics that are specific to the mobile platform must be developed to fully determine the effectiveness and efficiency of mobile-marketing practices.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Please Share this article With Your Friends and Family On:

The Role of Mobile Marketing in Branding

Mobile marketing enable brands to achieve three objectives:

The Future of Mobile Marketing:

.

.

.

.

.

.

Please Share this article With Your Friends and Family On:

The Coming Era of Brand in the Hand Marketing

Please Share this article With Your Friends and Family On:

Blogging: A New Play In Your Marketing Game Plan

.

.

.

Today marketing has gone from marketing a product to marketing a brand/ feeling and getting the customer’s experience. E.g. Master Card’s “Priceless Campaign”. Hence companies are looking at new opportunities like blogs to differentiate.

.

60% US’ customers find marketing irrelevant and 70% interested in products to block marketing attempts.

.

Today customers are armed with IPods, TiVo, search engines, spam filters etc. which pose challenges for marketers due to media fragmentation, clutter and resistance to commercial messages.

.

So, what should be the new Marketing Game Plan to attract customer’s attraction? It is BLOGGING!!!

.

Blogging is the new buzzword in the marketing arena after the invent and popularization of Web 2.0 standard. This was not so previously, because of the limitations of technology offered by Web 1.0 standards. Some of these differences are:

.

.

Difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0:

.

Web 2.0 is more customer centric, user generated, builds on collective community intelligence.

E.g.: – Google Ad Sense, Wikipedia(Web 2.0) compared to Britannica Online(Web 1.0), Companies like IBM, HP, GM, GE, Honda use blogs effectively.

.

Blogs began in late 90s as web based Project management tools. Pyra launched blogger in 99 and was taken over by Google in 2003. Today there are more than 63.2 million blogs – 90% in US.

.

.

6 ways in which blogs contribute to community’s success: -

.

1. Provides new way to stay relevant to customers. E.g.97 year old GM stays culturally relevant using blogs

2. Blogs provide differentiation

3. Bridge the generation gap

4. Used by thought leaders to share expertise and experiences E.g.: Guy Kawasaki

5. Provide global platform to reach world audience

6. Opportunity for ordinary people to voice opinions

.

.

Companies like Honda use blogs to specifically drive traffic to their site – Tactical Marketing.

.

Used as a true interactive vehicle –E.g.GM, Boeing, Microsoft – Strategic Marketing.

.

less than 5% of fortune 1000 companies use blogs strategically.

.

.

Advantages of Using Blogs for Marketing:

1. . Help identify market trends
2. . Ability to get competitive intelligence
3. . Helps build relations and brand loyalty
4. . Feedback on products

.

.

Limitations of Using Blogs for Marketing:

1. . Lack of control and boundaries in blogs
2. . Commitment and continuity – not managing blog properly defeats the purpose

.

.

.

.

.

.

Please Share this article With Your Friends and Family On: