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Mobile Marketing Mystery: Gameloft Hides Easter Egg In 'Heroes' Game

I just wish someone would put an easter egg in the actual show - off to a pretty boring start so far this season.

But major fans are no doubt still in love with Hiro, HRG, Peter, Nicky and all the rest. And they'll no doubt  be drawn into the "Heroes" mobile game from Universal and Gameloft. Apparently, there's a spoiler to the second season located in a "hidden room containing a secret that sheds light on a long-standing show mystery." 

I'm impressed that the show's producers enabled a spoiler to be put into the mobile game - but it'll no doubt build buzz for both the game and the popular show.

Read more here.

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NBA Shoots For A Mobile Slam Dunk

The NBA shoots for mobile stardom. Will it score?

Word's out that ESPN Mobile TV, MediaFLO USA and Verizon have teamed up with the NBA to deliver up to 70 live 2007/08 season NBA games on V-Cast Mobile TV.

We're talking a court side seats in the palm of your hand, starting today with the Dallas Mavericks and the Cleveland Cavaliers, as well as the Seattle Supersonics at the Denver Nuggets.

I suspect the biggest users of this service will be people out of market (I wonder how the digital rights management works here...it may be the 70 games are nationally televised ESPN games) or people in-stadium who want all the replays and commentary at hand.

NBA fans will no doubt love the access.

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Players Network Gambles On Mobile Sweepstakes

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas - until Players Network gets involved.

Players Network, the popular VOD service covering Las Vegas and gaming lifestyles, has announced plans to launch a series of promotional sweepstakes via SMS.

The effort, set for Q1 2008 and developed with mobile marketing firm Modern Mobile Marketing, will be promoted and marketed aggressively on all Players Network’s VOD platforms and its website, www.PlayersNetwork.com.


The idea: excite consumers about Players Network, create an interactive experience between the consumer and Players Network programming, accelerate branding of Players Network as the leading provider of Las Vegas and Gaming content, generate significant revenue, and provide Players Network producers and partners with valuable consumer data for re-marketing purposes.

Show some of the videos on the company's Website via mobile and mission definitely accomplished.

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Ironman: Legendary Triathlon Mobilizes Event For Far-Flung Fans

Hawaii's 2007 Ironman championship is saying "Aloha" to mobile content and marketing.

Word's out that San Francisco-based Active Athlete Media, an online media company that connects advertisers with lifestyle sports enthusiasts, is launching  a text-messaging and mobile Web-browsing initiative for the 2007 Ford Ironman World Championship in Kailui-Kona, Hawaii.

Among the offerings: Text message (SMS) updates with participant status at key checkpoints during the competition, as well as a custom-built WAP site for optimal viewing on mobile phones, including streaming video.

“We recognize that more and more people are on-the-go, so delivering instant coverage to a mobile audience is a natural extension to our marketing strategy,” says Bill Potts, vice president of marketing for Ironman, in a statement.

Adds Active Athlete CEO Robert Tas: “While the athlete is our true north, this program is also a prime example of how Active Athlete helps both advertisers and publishers utilize new media formats, custom packages and targeted media to reach an audience that is passionate and genuinely interested in the information we’re offering. We’re serving the needs of those who want the information, as opposed to pushing it on them. It’s valuable to them, and they are valuable to us.”

I think this is a great move for a couple of key reasons.

For starters, massive sports events like the Super Bowl started mobilizing content in a big way earlier this year. And for Ironman aficionados, it's hard to actually see live coverage unless you're there. For some strange reason, networks want to record the event and shelve it - not until it's in an optimal time zone but sometimes until months after the event.

With Web, and especially with mobile, fans of this sport, which tend to be somewhat fanatical, can get their fix -fast. The only catch here is that, at least in terms of the text messaging alerts, they look to be AT&T specific, meaning non-AT&T subscribers might be excluded.

But hey, it's a start in the right direction.

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Will Carriers & Manufacturers Go Ga-Ga For Google Phone?

Marketers will, no doubt.

But carriers, one, may be loathe to give up that much control on the content consumers can access on mobile phones. Several news organizations are reporting that Google is expected to announce advanced software and services that would allow handset makers to bring Google-powered phones to market by the middle of next year. The company has been in talks to make a phone - hardware, not just services or software - as well as to forge partnerships with carriers.

As far as this first software-and-services announcement, it sounds like a kind of  Google-class direct-to-consumer Mobio (the CEO of which I spoke with a week or so ago, and will be posting an interview in the next several days).

In Google's case, the idea is to wrap together several Google applications - think search engine, Google Maps, Gmail and YouTube, etc. - and then wrap it to more mobile-centric applications, such as contact lists and GPS.

Will carriers open up their phones and service to a Google? If anything, Google's plans may slow down the tentative steps toward openness we've seen in recent weeks on the manufacturing side from Apple, Nokia, Microsoft, Sprint and others. That's because these players have all wanted to control - and monetize - more of the entire mobile ecosystem. If they open to Google, and Google just takes over the mobile experience (and ad dollars), those efforts could collapse.

On the carrier side, all the moves from manufacturers and third parties have made them nervous. Given the investment they have in mobile infrastructure and service management, will it be the carrier that becomes more of the commodity in these new scenarios?

Only time will tell if these once safe players get Googled the way so many PC-based services before them. 

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MTV Meets Mobile, Web 2.0: Incubator Rewards College Students With Cool Concepts

Time to get RapHappy.

Ad Age is reporting that RapHappy.com, the brain child of U.C. Berkeley student Matthew Fargo and his fun-loving friends has earned the team $100,000 in this year's "Digital Incubator" contest - a project run by MTVU and Cisco to launch innovative Web 2.0 concepts. The idea: Leave the ideating to college students.

RapHappy.com is a site where users can create audio rap songs and others can add to the rap, compete against each other, or vote on favorites.

"What's amazing about the product is that it's very viral; you can add to other people's raps, upload raps on a mobile phone, and if they hit the right vein, you can hit critical mass," Mika Salmi, MTV's president, global digital medial, tells the pub. "It'll just take off."

Other entries in the "Incubators" contest includes "How Do I Say This" - an advice wiki that got a short run MTV show this month and "Hit! or Shit!" - a "Hot or Not"-style video ranking platform.

Everyone wins with these sorts of contest. MTV shines its aura of hipness for a fraction of the money it'd take to come up with one of these 2.0 projects on their own. And young people get the chance to become the next big 2.0 thing. Word.

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Online Casual Gamers 2X More Likely To Play Mobile Games

I've received a ton of emails wondering why I wasn't at CTIA this week. I was actually on the East Coast giving a presentation on my prognostications for the top digital marketing trends for 2008 (including mobile) to marketing and advertising executives in the direct to consumer pharmaceutical industry (think Vytorin; Cialis; Levitra; Zoloft; Lipitor, et al). It was a lot of fun and I had a great time.

Back to the topic at hand: Mobile entertainment company I-Play has just released the results of a survey that reveals 38% of casual online game customers play on their mobile handsets. And nearly half of respondents - 45% - would play their favorite online games on mobile if they were available.

When asked whether they played games on their mobile phones 22% said ‘yes’ and 16% said ‘sometimes’. The combined 38% compares favorably to the industry average of 20.5% of North Americans who play a mobile game on their handset each month, according to latest figures from M:Metrics.  These findings show that online causal gamers are almost twice as likely to play mobile games as the average mobile user.

“The frequency with which online casual gamers play is noteworthy and the fact that this group have twice the propensity to play mobile games as the average mobile user is hugely exciting and positive for the mobile games industry," says David Gosen, president of I-play. "Further potential is shown by the fact that nearly half of people surveyed would want to play their favorite online game on mobile, providing another positive indication of the cross-pollination opportunities between the two gaming communities. This reinforces our position first company to deliver global, integrated casual-games solutions across the ‘three screens’ of PC, mobile and iTV.”

Leading research firm DFC Intelligence forecasts subscription revenue from online casual games will grow from $2 billion in 2005 to $6.8 billion by 2011.

Which is all fine and well. But what I find really interesting is the demographic breakdown we're talking about here. The largest number of players come from those 55-years old and over.

The findings come from a poll of 1,000 online casual games players visiting partner game sites served by Oberon during September.  The age demographic represents a relatively equal split across all age ranges:

•        19% of respondents were 18-24 year olds;

•        20% of respondents were 25-34 year olds;

•        17% of respondents were 35-44 year olds;

•        21% of respondents were 44-54 year olds and

•        25% of respondents were 55+ year olds

In other words: Mobile games aren't just kid tested. They're mother and father approved.

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Interview: Laura Klauberg, Sr. Vice President of Global Media, Unilever (Conclusion): Getting Personal With Digital Media

How does a 52-year-old business executive with the world's second largest media budget keep up with consumer digital innovation?

Laura Klauberg, Unilever's new senior vice president of global media, says she has three secret weapons: her daughters, ages 16, 19 and 21 – who provide a personal focus group on how young people interact with digital media.

According to Klauberg, her efforts have gone smoothly so far. Except for that one incident on Facebook.

Conclusion: Getting Personal - Keeping up with Digital Innovation

(Approx. 4:14)

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Interview: Laura Klauberg, Sr. Vice President of Global Media, Unilever (Part 3)

Is Unilever going to stop participating in the television upfronts?

And how do you create a culture of brand innovation within a large global enterprise - the kind of innovation that results in groundbreaking work for brands like Dove, Axe and Suave?

These are the questions I pose to Laura Klauberg, Unilever's new senior vice president of global media, in part three of our recent interview.

Part 3: Digital v. TV - And The Secrets To Creating A Culture of Brand Innovation

(Approx. 7:35)

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Interview: Laura Klauberg, Sr. Vice President of Global Media, Unilever (Part 2): The 'Evolution' of Dove

Everybody knew Unilever's Dove brand has made waves with it's "What Is Beautiful" campaign. But who could have predicted controversy?

Over the last few days, some have questioned Unilever in the New York Times for encouraging women to look past beauty stereotypes through Dove, while, it can be argued, simultaneously capitalizing on those stereotypes in raunchy spots for Axe deodorant?

The criticism is somewhat misguided. Unilever is a company that has multiple brands speaking to multiple audiences.

As Laura Klauberg explained in part one of my interview with her, brand messages start with consumer insights - insights from each brand's unique audience. What resonates with adult women won't resonate with young men, and vice versa.

And even then, Unilever says recent provocative Axe commercials, primarily aimed at men 18 to 24, are meant as a spoof.

In part two of my interview with Klauberg, we take a closer look at the Dove "Beautiful" campaign - and components like the hugely popular "Evolution" and "Onslaught" videos - and what have made them so successful.

PART TWO: What Is Beautiful: The ‘Evolution’ of Dove

(Approx. 5 min)

 
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