BRANDING UNBOUND

'Live Free or Die Hard' Plays Hard In Mobile Marketing Effort

Yippee ki yay, mobile brothers.

John McClane is back after, what 12 years, and he's definitely hip with the times. Not only does "Live Free or Die Hard" have a cache of mobile downloads - including ringtones (yes, a G-rated version of his famous "yippee ki yay" line) and a not-as-G-rated "I am John McClane" audio montage along; wall papers and animations and a mobile game that looks like those old secret agent video games from the 1980's.

Apparently, the 20th Century Fox film also has a tie-in deal with Samsung that lets Samsung subscribers text "DH" to 62945" for LFDH content via site, where you can buy the mobile game or play a Die Hard quiz for the chance to win prizes.

The actioner even has its own Second Life experience.

Gotta love that McClane - he'll always keep us thrilled - or die hard trying.

Check it all out at the movie's official site, here.

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Mobile Salesman Becomes Unlikely Opera-Singing Star

Okay, this has nothing much to do with today's iPhone launch or even, really, mobile. But it's Friday, and I just liked it. One Paul Potts, a salesman at Car Phone Warehouse, competes in one of the gazillion worldwide variants of American Idol (I think this is Britain's Got Talent, with Idol's Simon Cowell), singing, of all things, Puccini's aria Nessun Dorma from Turandot. You'll feel this one.

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More Local TV Stations Are Dialing Up Mobile Content

Here's where the real power of mobile content might show up: A growing number of local television stations are embracing mobile as a way to reach increasingly on-the-go audiences.

Sure, big national television networks have been rolling out video clips and full episodes of popular news and shows. But local stations offer news that crucial to daily life. Think news, weather, traffic and other community information.

According to this week's Mediaweek, over 200 local television stations have begun rolling out mobile offerings over the last 18 months.

The big issue most face is which model to pursue. Many charge somewhere between $2.99 to $4.99, while others think they can make more money through ad-supported models.

In BRANDING UNBOUND the book, I look at how local broadcasters in both television and radio have been looking to mobile as a new distribution channel, an audience-interaction channel, and potentially lucrative revenue stream. At least one Meredith Broadcasting officials has contacted me about the book ito inform the company's exploration of potential models for their local operations. And Mediaweek itself has run a multi-page excerpt of BRANDING UNBOUND in its bundled publication on non-traditional media, Other Advertising.

The pay off could be big.

"A year ago, mobile was brand new. But TV stations know it's going to be huge and that gives us time to get a great product solidified so we're not caught off guard," Peter Raih, product manager for Internet Broadcasting, which has 30 mobile TV-station affiliates, tells Mediaweek.

"It's just on the edge of becoming a 'today' business,'" adds Chris Rohrs, president of the Television Bureau of Advertising. "In five to 10 years, it could be 10 percent of a station's business."

Read the Mediaweek story on local TV going mobile, here.

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New Games From Nintendo May Further Fuel iPhone Mania

As iPhone mania grips America today - lines are long in Manhattan and the San Francisco Bay Area - there are rumors that Nintendo is aiming to fuel iPhone-ia over the next several months.

Barrons is reporting that fourth-and-fifth-hand accounts that the maker of Wii and Gameboy has agreed to license a number of its video games to Apple for sale on the company's iPhone, which officially goes on sale today. Price point: $29. Time frame: sometime in the next few months. Credibility: Iffy. Cool factor: Some potential, given that it may open up Nintendo games to a new, older audience.

Read more about it, here.

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Nielsen Set to Acquire Telephia To Augment Mobile Usage Tracking

Nielsen's on the hunt for cell phone usage data.

The company has agreed to acquire San Francisco-based Telephia to enhance its ability to track how consumers use their mobile phones - for calling, Web surfing, video viewing and more.

The New York Times today reports that the company's Nielsen Wireless service is set to roll out its first mobile product, Mobile Vector, which will begin releasing information on cell phone users and will be linked to data from its television tracking People Meters. And it comes as Nielsen has been working to track video across platforms.

Media companies are embracing the move. As George Kliavkoff, chief digital officer of NBC Universal puts it to the Times: "Any technology that increases measurement across any platform, including mobile, is of great interest to us...It helps our advertisers appreciate the full value their getting" from content.

Read the full NYT piece, here.

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'Saw III' Wins Adweek's Media Plan of the Year: Best Use of Mobile

Last year, it was Toyota. This year, it's Jigsaw.

But MobiTV figured for both.

Initiative's Innovation and Entertainment division has won Adweek's Media Plan of The Year Award for Best Use of Mobile for their effort to bring images from the blood-soaked torture flick to millions of mobile phones.

As part of an integrated campaign to promote the DVD release of Lionsgate's Saw III in January, Initiative worked with MobiTV (which was part of Toyota's Adweek award-winning effort last year), to create a 24/7 Saw III mobile TV channel featuring outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage and cast interviews and other content featuring Saw's notorious villian, Jigsaw.

Additionally, Saw III ad banners were run in other MobiTV networks - and even worked with other content providers to work in Saw III-related references in comedy routines, and so forth.

The result: Saw III was the top-selling and top-rented DVD during its first week in release, and helped push DVDs of the first two Saw pictures back into the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert Top 20.

"Of course, every agency wants to do something cool, something innovative, especially during these days of constantly changing digital media landscape. But it's not easy to do," Alan Cohen, EVP, managing director of Initiative West, tells Adweek. "We had a group that is used to doing things that are new."

To see how films like Spiderman 3, Superman Returns, Batman Begins and others use mobile to build fandemonium, pick up a copy of BRANDING UNBOUND the book today.

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Author Publishes First Book Ever Written On Mobile Phone

It just pains me to think about entering in the text.

Apparently, Italian author Robert Bernocco has written a book completely on a mobile phone and is publishing it on Lulo.com.

There was a method to his madness - he  used his idle time during his train commute writing a 384-page sci-fi novel "Fellow Travellers" on a Nokia 6630 phone. He'd write short paragraphs, save them on the phone, and then download them to his home PC for editing. The book took him 17 weeks to write.

Cristel Lee Leed, European Vice President at Lulu.com, comments in a statement about the book: “We live in an age when individuals are strapped for time due to work and family commitments, and this can often stifle creativity. Mr. Bernocco is a great example of the type of author we often encounter on Lulu – he has not only been creative with what he has written but also with how he has written it!”

No word yet if the novel is available to download to phones or PDAs.

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Is Mobile The "Third Screen," Or The First?

Last week I reported on the conviction of John Zehr, senior vice president of digital video and mobile products for ESPN, that mobile's no longer the proverbial "third screen." “People talk about [mobile] being the third screen," he told the New York Times. "I talk about it being the first screen because it’s closest to you.

Now, Bob Greenberg, CEO of R/GA, is saying the same thing. But while I feel Zehr may be right in his statement, but for the wrong reasons (at least I think he means we're all going to want to watch ESPN - and associated video advertisements - on our mobile phones, which seems dubious at best), Greenberg's correct for all the right reasons.

"The same agencies that missed the Web revolution are even less equipped to answer the call of mobility," he recently wrote in Adweek, adding that "Just as there were dangers when agencies tried to force the TV model onto the Web, there are more dangers in forcing the Web model onto mobile (or even worse, forcing the TV model onto mobile."

Here, here. And he gets even better.

"If we think a consumer is going to whip out a device and watch a boring promotional video while in the aisle of Target or Tesco, we're wrong. If we think a consumer is going to wade through 25 tiny screens to buy a movie ticket we're wrong. If we think a consumer is going to pay attention to an interruptive message at the start of a CNN video clip on his or her mobile device, we're wrong again. If we think consumers aren't ready to watch feature length movies, TV shows and even viral videos on their mobile devices, think again once more."

That, as Bob knows, is what I've been saying for some time, and is a central point of BRANDING UNBOUND the book. And why? Because mobile is far more powerful than that. Instead of just a digital distribution network, it's a tool for (branded) on-the-go applications, and a response mechanism by which we can respond to commercial messages and offers we experience in other media - print, television, radio, online, outdoor, in-store, and so on - right at the point of impression.

In the book, I interview R/GA vice president of marketing John Mayo-Smith about ways R/GA has helped brands like Yahoo are starting to harness this dynamic - creating a compelling brand experience that a.) cannot be accomplished through any other medium, and b.) enabled an immediate action at the consumer's demand.

Mobile is the most measurable, personal, and direct link to consumers ever created - and perhaps the most powerful.

That is, if you use it right.

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Wells Fargo, Visa Testing Mobile Payment System

Now this is what you call a "road test."

Financial services giants Wells Fargo and Visa USA announced today that they're conducting a joint pilot of an extensive mobile payment system. The idea is to help both companies better understand how consumers use mobile payment and service options on mobile devices outfitted with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. The idea is to test secure, over-the-air delivery of payment account information to the mobile device; mobile payments in retail stores and restaurants ac cepting Visa payWave technology; receiving and redeeming mobile coupons; and account management services.

“Mobile devices have become an integral part of everyday life, just as electronic payments have,” Peter Ho, product manager in Wells Fargo’s Card Services division said in a statement. “Our customers expect the flexibility and convenience that mobile payments and services provide. Visa’s mobile platform delivers what we need to develop secure, mobile solutions.”

In BRANDING UNBOUND the book, I look at the myriad ways these two companies have been at the forefront of mobile commerce, especially in m-banking, in their attempts to identify, and capitalize, on ways mobile can enhance the brand experience and spur financial transactions.

Read more about this new pilot, here.

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Law Suit: Are SMS Text Contests Illegal?

Is "participation television" really a con?

Ad Age is reporting that a law suit from a hairdresser and secretary from Georgia is casting doubt on the legality of SMS promotions for "The Apprentice," "Deal or No Deal" and "One vs. 100."

The plaintiffs' allegation: That mobile games constitute illegal gambling.

That's a big deal, because up to 210 million mobile subscribers have participated in "Deal or No Deal's Lucky Case Game, and the show has awarded over $1 million in prizes, according to Ad Age. And viewers of "The Apprentice" paid 99-cents for the chance to win a $10,000 grand prize in a promotion titled "Get Rich With Trump."

The lawsuit says those 99-cent premium text-messaging fees to participate are an apparent violation of something called the Standard Lottery Rule. The 99-cent fee is applied on top of the basic text-message fee, and is split between the TV shows' producers, their television networks and the mobile carrier.

Apparently, for contests to be considered lotteries, and therefore illegal, they must contain three elements: a prize, chance and consideration (or bet).

Soda pop makers get around this kind of thing because if a beverage marketer offers a drink-and-win, bottle-cap style sweepstakes, for instance, the people purchasing the beverage get a cold drink in exchange for the money they spent to enter.

It's all very confusing and all of these are just allegations until something is proven in court. But it appears right now that mobile promotions are better off if they offer ringtones or wallpapers in exchange for sending text entries.

As attorney Joseph Lewczak tells Ad Age, "Charging a premium fee for a text message, which provides the entrant with no bona fide product or service, may be deemed illegal....It is important not to overlook the fact that, though mobile entertainment may be a new and fast-developing medium, this medium is not exempt from the laws that would otherwise apply in the brick-and-mortar world."

To read the full Ad Age story, click here.

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