Jeff Weidauer, vice president of marketing and
strategy for Vestcom International, an integrated
shopper marketing solutions provider based in
Little Rock, Ark. “Each piece, regardless of
where it’s viewed by the target audience, must
support and interact with every other piece in
order to be effective.”
Digging for Data
Some of the changes required to smooth the path
to meaningful integration of mobile into cross-platform marketing strategies are cultural. Many
organizations have assigned ownership of different
parts of the path-to-purchase cycle to different
people within the organization, a tactic that not
only does nothing to further the cause of integration, it can be a serious impediment, says Dave
Many brands have made significant strides
toward integrating mobile into their cross-platform strategies, with surveys showing
increased marketer commitment to this goal.
Lawson, director of mobile engagement at Knotice,
an Akron, Ohio–based provider of software that
helps companies maximize digital marketing ROI.
“Integrating these parts happens a certain way
today, and mobile shifts everything on its ear a bit.
Does a web programmer own the mobile website?
Does the e-commerce person own any conversion
opportunity? The customer doesn’t care about
these things, but they can ignite an internal war for
ownership of that customer,” he says.
Microsoft’s Williams agrees that the “
outdated” organizational structure within many
marketing organizations is a prime candidate for
change. But before organizations can navigate
the complex planning process for a truly
integrated approach, marketers must improve
their skills and agencies, and their capabilities.
The lack of access to meaningful information
about their customers’ mobile habits and content
activities was cited by about a third of respondents
in the Chief Marketer survey, but many in the
mobile field see this as a fast-fading challenge.
Actionable data on mobile users exists and is
being augmented every day, Williams points out,
although she admits much of it is still fragmented,
making it tougher to form actionable insights.
“The key is to develop comprehensive hypotheses
and learning plans, gather insights from behavioral and attitudinal data sources, continuously
6 | October 2011 ANA Thought Leadership Series
monitor the results, and challenge the findings to
make sure they hold up as innovations impact
consumer perceptions and behaviors and the
ecosystem evolves and adapts,” she says.
Meeting a Brand’s Needs
To be sure, many brands have made significant
strides toward integrating mobile into their
cross-platform strategies, with surveys showing
increased marketer commitment to this goal.
Adapting the strategy to the brand’s specific needs
is one key to success, says Mike Fischer, chief
marketing officer at Coldwell Banker. Since home
buying is not an immediate decision or purchase,
Coldwell Banker views its mobile process as a way
to introduce the brand and, most important,
present its agents with an opportunity to be in front
of consumers on their terms, he says.
“We were the first national brand with an iPad
app, and we subsequently worked with Apple on
how to generate more leads for the app,” Fischer
relates. “We were one of the initial core group of
advertisers to take advantage of Apple’s iAd for
the iPad. It worked. Our touch rates are five
times greater than standard click-through rates
on banner ads. More important, we learned that
this investment has already spawned ideas that
impact even our more traditional web presence.”
Yahoo! had great success connecting Toyota
and Subway with football fans in cross-platform
campaigns involving its Fantasy Football
application and mobile website, says Paul
Cushman, senior director of mobile sales strategy
at Yahoo! “Their branding and advertising was
front and center as users continually monitored
their teams’ progress and regularly conducted
their trades,” he says. “But, more important, we
preserved the user experience, focusing on rich
media pop-ups in the mobile app that didn’t
detract from the content.”
Larry DeGaris, director of the Academic
Sports Marketing Program at the University of
Indianapolis, and Mark Dodds, an associate
professor at SUNY Cortland who specializes in
event marketing, recently published research
demonstrating that integration of mobile
marketing into NASCAR sponsorship campaigns
returns measurable positive results — including
heightened enjoyment of the event for fans
visiting sponsors’ exhibits, enhanced brand
image, and increased purchase intent.
“Further, the effects tend to be additive to other
sponsorship-linked marketing efforts, such as
advertising and sales promotions,” DeGaris says.
