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Red Cross attracts $190K in pledges via Text 2HELP program

By Mickey Alam Khan

December 4, 2008

Push red at the Republican convention

Mobile subscribers pledged more than $190,000 since September to the American Red Cross through its text message program.

Revived this time to help victims of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, the recent Red Cross’ Text 2HELP effort is being claimed as the mobile industry’s most successful nonprofit text fundraiser. A major reason for its widespread acceptance is the extensive publicity that the Text 2HELP program received from politicians, social media sites and the media.

“I think the key to it is promote, promote, promote,” said Mike Campbell, senior vice president at VeriSign Inc.’s VeriSign Messaging and Mobile Media division in Boston.

The Red Cross received the $190,000 in donations through 38,091 text messages.

VeriSign Messaging and Mobile Media powers the mobile application and mobile messaging transactions and delivery in conjunction with The Wireless Foundation, a nonprofit founded by members of CTIA – The Wireless Association.

Text 2HELP donations go to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund to offer shelter, food, counseling and help to victims of the many disasters nationwide.

Subscribers of participating wireless carriers can donate $5 up to five times per month by texting the keyword GIVE to 2HELP (24357).

“The range needs to be an amount that people can feel comfortable donating on the spot when they have the inclination to donate,” Mr. Campbell said.

Charges for these donations will appear on the subscriber’s mobile phone bill each month. They can also be debited from prepaid account balances for those mobile consumers without a contract.

Standard text messaging rates may apply to those texted donations.

The participating carriers include AT&T, Alltel, Sprint, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular.

The popularity of the Text 2HELP program has convinced the Red Cross, VeriSign and the Wireless Foundation to extend its life to Dec. 31, two months past its deadline.

Another consideration for the extension was the need for donations as more disasters strike the country – tornadoes, the worst flooding in the Midwest in 15 years, early wildfires in Western states such as California and an active hurricane season with Dolly, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike.

The Text 2HELP program also introduces a new class of donors into society, aside from those responding to direct mail, television, print or online appeals.

The Red Cross aims to raise $100 million this year for its Campaign for Disaster Relief. More than $65 million has been raised, as of Nov. 20.

The Text 2HELP program was first launched to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. It is initiated whenever a large-scale disaster occurs that the Red Cross determines will require considerable national assistance.

The most recent Text 2HELP effort was pushed extensively and across channels. Campaigns for presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain as well as the CMO Council, the National Football League and the Boston Red Cross promoted.

In addition, the Red Cross promoted the program on social media platforms such as Twitter and on the Red Cross blog at http://www.redcrosschat.org.

The Red Cross has also created a Text 2HELP widget for social media users to run on their Web sites.
Other charities can learn from the Red Cross’ experience with text fundraising.

“I believe that this is a very viable channel in that there are people out there who still want to donate during these tough economic times,” Mr. Campbell said.

“What the mobile channel allows charities to do is take advantage of a whole different group of people who want to donate but it should be easy for them to donate,” he said.

Editor in Chief Mickey Alam Khan covers advertising agencies, associations, research, and column submissions.

Guinness taps mobile for pint campaign

By Giselle Abramovich

December 3, 2008

Ale and hearty

Irish brewer Guinness has launched The Great Guinness Pint Contest, an interactive mobile program meant to engage consumers with the brand.

The program asks consumers at participating businesses to rate their pint of Guinness via their mobile phone. Each time consumers rate their pint they are entered into a sweepstakes in which the winner gets a trip to the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland, during the company's 250th anniversary.

“Guinness is really big on quality in terms of its beer and the way that it is served,” said John Lim, CEO of Mobile Card Cast, Tarrytown, NY. "Guinness believes that raising the quality of its product will ultimately mean more sales."

Mobile Card Cast is powering the Guinness program.

Who's tops
The top performing accounts - bars or restaurants serving Guinness - in each market will receive a celebration party.

“This is great fun for an establishment’s patrons,” said Seth Kaplan, managing partner of Mobile Real Estate ID, Tarrytown, NY.

“They get to interact with the product and service they’re receiving, give immediate feedback to the bar, and oh, yeah, they have a chance to win a trip,” he said.

Live drawings will be held on the television sets in each of the participating establishments for the trips to Dublin.

A plaque will be presented to the bar for serving one of the “Greatest Pints of Guinness in America” as voted by the consumers.

The night will culminate with a toast to the account for its accomplishment.

This program is part of a bigger mobile effort built off the pride of Guinness and its loyal consumers.

The Guinness Quality Mobile Program is the first of its kind.

This program allows consumers in a non-invasive way to tell the bar or restaurant how much they enjoyed or disliked their pint.

While the consumer rates the pint, the bar or restaurant is now measured against its peers.

Also, the program creates a competition within markets and amongst establishments that serve Guinness.

10-pint scale
Consumers are asked to rate their pint on a scale from one to 10 via text message. They are asked to text "GREAT" to the short code 88500 for a chance to win the trip to Dublin.

Table tents, coasters and posters within participating bars and restaurants will promote the program.

Additionally, a tip card will be available to patrons, which will give them tips on how to rate a pint of Guinness.

“I think Guinness chose mobile because, No. 1, it is the most popular form of communication these days, especially SMS,” Mr. Kaplan said.

“It is pretty much guaranteed that everyone who walks into a participating bar or restaurant has a cell phone and can interact with the program, without ever having to fill anything out," he said.

Associate Editor Giselle Abramovich covers ad networks, advertising, content, email, media, messaging, legal/privacy, search, social networks, television and video.

African Mobile Culture

Cellular Networks are very competitive in Africa and the local population has adopted mobile technology en masse. Because most of the local population in Africa are still very poor they have formed behaviour pattern on mobile phone usage that takes advantage of cost saving deals from competing cellular networks.

Most locals use two or three sim cards from different cellular networks. There are even handsets available in the market that takes two sim cards to make switching between different cellular networks easier. These handsets are imported from China, and sold through independent retail outlets. Obviously none of the cellular networks support this trend and do not offer such handsets in their retail outlets. It does however make life much easier for the local market and for the business traveller. The best solution for the business traveller is to keep their primary number and phone roaming on their normal network. Particularly if it is a Blackberry or smart phone to continue to receive emails, and smses, and be available in case of an emergency.

Audi lets consumers take test drive on mobile

By Giselle Abramovich

August 22, 2008

Good carma

Automobile manufacturer Audi of America has launched a mobile application for the iPhone to introduce its new Audi A4 luxury sports car.

Audi is using the iPhone motion sensor to let consumers steer a digital version of the new A4. Factory Design Labs designed the game titled, “Audi A4 Challenge.”

“We are right in the middle of the A4 launch and mobile is a great way to interact with consumers,” said Jeri Ward, general manager of marketing and strategy at Audi, New York. “We are using television slots for broad awareness, and to reach our tech-savvy, sophisticated consumers we turned to the iPhone.”

Audi agency Factory Design Labs is a Denver, CO-based interactive shop. Besides Audi, other clients include Oakley and The North Face.

The A4 Challenge lets players maneuver the course and race against the clock to beat their own personal best time.

Steering feel

The 2009 A4 is promised to be bigger, faster and more efficient than the previous models. It is jam-packed with luxury, leather and technology.

Audi A4 Challenge is free and available on Apple’s iPhone App Store.

The vehicle itself will be available in September.

Audi has also launched a site that allows users to experience and learn more about the car.

Consumers can go to http://www.truthinengineering.com/a4/iphone from the iPhone to access content such as videos, wallpapers, an exterior color customizer, a dealer locator link and a link to install the application.

With this initiative, Audi is targeting smart, sophisticated consumers who tend to be early adopters as well.

“With A4 being such a high-volume product, we are trying to introduce new consumers to the brand,” Ms. Ward said. “Our customers tend to be more tech-savvy and use the Internet for automotive research.”

Ms. Ward also said that Audi is targeting consumers 25-54, but with that demographic, people like to try more things, are leaders in auto-buying and are early adopters.

The application will be promoted using more traditional media such as online banners on Audi sites.

“Mobile is a unique way to engage consumers with the brand and highlight things that are core to the A4’s acceleration and its overall performance as a vehicle,” Ms. Ward said.

“We have various links on our site to drive the use of the widget,” she said.

Ms. Ward expects that as people download the application, it will be marketed virally.

“Mobile is very consistent with our progressive DNA,” Ms. Ward said.

“Our cars progress and so do our marketing approaches,” she said.

NBC adds interactivity to Olympic WAP site

By Gabrielle Kalika

August 13, 2008

NBC Olympics gets feedback via mobile

NBC Universal is enabling interactive survey features on its Olympics WAP site.

NBC has tapped MobileVerbs’ mobile on-demand platform to let visitors to its Olympics WAP site click on a banner which links them to an active poll or survey. NBC’s research team will then gain immediate access to users survey results and visitor feedback in real-time via a hosted dashboard.

“With NBC we have put together a mobile service for the NBC Olympic WAP site with which they can collect feedback and responses from the target audience,” said Parmeet Chaddha, founder/CEO of MobileVerbs Inc., Freemont, CA. “We are using the platform to set up the serving capabilities.

“The results are being delivered in-real time so as people are giving in their results, the results are being immediately delivered to the market research team,” he said.

The on-demand mobile marketing service from MobileVerbs will allow wireless market research capability on NBC’s Olympics WAP site.

Due to this software, the NBC campaign response is reported to have significantly grown, which illuminates the benefits of using mobile marketing to reach target users.

Mr. Chaddah also said that the key element here is to quickly receive and deliver information to and from consumers.

“From the time NBC contacted us to set up this particular service capability, they were really looking for results to respond in real time, in order to track user responses. It took no more than two hours to set it all up,” he said.

“For consumers it is having the ability to really get their feedback in terms of results and alerts, and how it will be useful,” he said. “This way they get what they want, and NBC sees higher consumption.”

The MobileVerbs platform is said to be unique because of its Situational Relevance Engine, which allows marketers to target their campaigns to wireless users' current context, so that the ads consumers receive are relevant to their current situation.

In addition, the service provides analytics and campaign performance results in real-time. All campaigns and interactive mobile programs are setup within hours from a hosted campaign management tool, without any programming or codes necessary. The campaigns are delivered via email, SMS, MMS, WAP or Web.

MobileVerbs' mobile marketing services cater to various media markets such as digital marketing agencies, direct marketers, media brands, and youth-focused retail brands.

“Obviously it’s a very critical opportunity for us,” Mr. Chaddah said. “We are a young company so this is a huge proposition.

“We will be enabling NBC to deliver highly interactive mobile campaigns, set up in literally hours,” he said. “The way we position our company is a one stop shop mobile platform, so whatever kind of service you are, our platform really supports the entire lifestyle of mobile.”

Editorial Assistant Gabrielle Kalika covers banking and payments, commerce, content, database/CRM, media and music. Reach her at gab.kal@hotmail.com.