Saturday, August 11, 2007

IMMAP recognize winners of 1st Boomerang Awards

The Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines organized the Boomerang Awards early this year in time for the 1st Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit. This award is the first in the country to showcase and give recognition to outstanding marketing campaigns that have utilized the internet and mobile devices as tools to meet business objectives in the most creative and breakthrough manner.

Twelve finalists in total competed for the Cyber Boomerang Award, Mobile Device Boomerang Award, and the Grand Boomerang Award. All entries were judged by prominent jurors such as Rob Martin Murphy, George Gozum, Tom Sipple, Dominic Chan, Stephane Chabanel, Jose Illenberger, Agapito Alcantara, Karen De Asis, Tommy Lopez, Donald Lim, Ed Mapa Jr., and Arthur Policarpio.



IMMAP Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit

Cyber Boomerang Award
The Cyber Boomerang Award is given to outstanding campaigns that have used the internet as their central marketing medium.
  • Gold Award - "The Philippine Explore Experience Return" (PEER) Free Flight Promo
    To fight bad press in the real world, a cyber-campaign was launched that not only to turn things around but opens the eyes of the world to the true beauty of the Philippines. This non-traditional program gave away 250 round-trip airline tickets from North America to the Philippines. It used negative images in ways that make them attractive and positive. The results were also non-traditional in terms of breaking set objectives and targets.

    This program launched a revitalized "balikbayan" program targeting the 2nd-3rd generation Filipino-Americans whose impression of their homeland was negative and driven by "backward" images. The website (www.experiencephilippines.ph) had over 7 million hits and acquired 85,000 names with 69,900 individual new database information. Over 10,000 participated in the online survey which provided additional information on the Filipino-Americans' travel preferences and packages including insights on heritage and travel purchase habits. For the duration of the promotion (October to December 2006), the Filipino-American segment posted an increase in visitor arrival of 5% vs. same period of the previous year.

  • Silver Award - Chowking "3G Web"
    This campaign for the website of this brand not only made the Chowking brand stronger to the market, it was temptingly delicious that inquiries for store franchisers came streaming from all over the world. This website from 800 visitors in February 2007 grew to 6,863 by June 2007 coming from 59 countries. Spending for the website marketing budget has increased from 85,000 per month in June 2006 to P135,000 per month by February of 2007.

    The campaign is now going through some incarnation of sorts with two more versions being built for Indonesia and the UAE to cater to the needs of local consumers.

  • Bronze Award - Smart 3G
    With a media plan tasked with driving traffic to a specified service's site, this campaign delivered 1.04 million visitors per day for 30 days (January to February). Cost per hit was below P0.09 - comparable with primetime TV levels. It also drove more than 50,000 people to the service section of the mother brand's website. During the audit of the performance campaign using Google Analytics, it was discovered that they were able to double visit the said section from the mother brand website, making it among the top most visited section of the entire portal. There were also more visits to subsections of the section such as rates, services, and coverage areas.
Mobile Device Boomerang Award
The Mobile Device Boomerang Award is given to outstanding campaigns that have used mobile devices as their central marketing medium.
  • Gold Award - Gatorade "Get into the NBA Promo 2"
    The objective of this campaign is to increase sales during peak summer months, build a database of consumers and strengthen brand preference among sports enthusiasts. The campaign utilized the text raffle execution.

    To join the promotion, consumers bought the product, texted the unique promo code found on the bottle cap, and kept the bottle cap as proof of purchase. Each successful sending of a promo code earns for the consumer "promo points". Weekly SMS updates were sent to all promo participants informing them of the "score-to-beat", thus generating significant excitement among participants. The highest pointer at the end of the campaign automatically wins an all-expense paid trip to the United States to watch the NBA finals live from courtside seats.

    The campaign was unique due to the "highest pointer" execution which encouraged significant consumption. It achieved set key objectives such as yielding of double-digit increase in sales, built a fully-profiled consumer database, and reduced implementation costs versus traditional raffle execution.

  • Silver Award - Ponds "7 Days Campaign"
    This team used mobile technology to address common sampling issues (high cost, logistics, control and inability to build a usable database, manpower) and as a medium for cost-efficient and targeted product sampling. It allowed efficient sampling tracking and automatic database building for the brand.

    Once the consumer texts the call to action keyword, he or she will receive a confirmation message that they can avail of a free trial pack at any partner outlet upon registering their name, age, gender, and address.

    The campaign generated more than 300,000 SMS hits in a short span of 1 month, averaging more than 10,000 hits daily. Market share also increased as a result. At the cost of P15.00 per consumer using traditional product sampling, the brand was able to save around 4 to 5 million in sampling cost through this innovative mobile sampling execution.

  • Bronze Award - Rexona "First Day Funk"
    This campaign created an entire movement for people who need all the confidence they can must on that one day of the year - students and the first day of school. This campaign generated tremendous buzz with students singing and dancing to the movements anthem - "First Day Funk" in campuses nationwide. This campaign resulted to a double-digit increase in sales for Rexona, plus an increase in market in the highly competitive deodorant category.
Grand Boomerang Award
The Grand Boomerang Award is given to outstanding campaigns that have used both the internet and mobile devices as their central marketing medium.
  • Gold Award - Philippine Daily Inquirer - INQuest: The Philippine Daily Inquirer Adventure
    This entry using the most modern of mass media - the internet and mobile - was developed for one of the oldest forms of media - the newspaper. By the end of the campaign, there were over 25, 000 registrants as part of an active database, exceeding targets over 25%. The website got over 4.2 million hits, averaging 19,000 hits per day at 18 minutes per visit.

    The novelty of the program - a multimedia game captured the interest and imagination of the youth as evidenced not just by their active participation, from SMS and web registrations to online chatrooms, but also by the size of the crowds who attended on-ground events.

    Traditional and passive medium into an interactive, engaging, innovative and entertaining media brand to appeal to the youth market it wants to lure back. This campaign helped the brand evolve into an innovative and dynamic news brand. The market/culture by making the brand more contemporary, fun exciting and flexible, adapting with the times. It also gave valuable learnings and insights on the market. This entry was also shortlisted as one of the best in the world in a global search of the most creative business ideas and showcased just how well Filipino marketers and advertisers have embraced new media to achieve business objectives.

  • Silver Award - Dove Campaign for Real Beauty Interactive Billboard
    Extra large or extra sexy? Aging or ageless? Beauty they say is in the eye of the beholder. Especially if what you are beholding is a giant billboard asking you pointed questions that gave millions real case to pause and reflect about how true beauty is viewed and considered. This campaign 'flew' totally - made people reconsider this 'beauty' old adage as well as bringing a refreshing change to the way marketers used 'traditional' media as billboards.

    By launching the first interactive billboards in the Philippines, this brand made everyone talk about beauty as a topic that was more than skin deep.

Friday, August 10, 2007

IMMAP makes history in 1st summit


Despite the heavy typhoon a day before, more than 400 participants joined the 1st Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit (August 9 and 10). For an association on its first year, this event is indeed record-breaking that sets a positive signal on the demand of Internet and mobile marketing.

This is what I learned so far from the sessions that I was able to listen to:

Simon Bond of Proximity Asia was able to share how brands have tapped on new media technologies such as blogs, videos, among others to create user generated content. For instance, Air New Zealand was campaigning New Zealand as a tourist destination and was sad as hardly one from the country knew anything about the place. They send a blogger to China for two-weeks to take on interesting adventure and blog about the experience. Due to his popularity, celebrities and other famous personalities have also visited New Zealand. The build-up of marketing activities resulted to have New Zealand as the 2nd most popular destination for travelers from China going to abroad.

Nix Nolledo of Xurpas shared how hard it was in 1999 where no organization wants to advertise at that time. Today, several opportunities exist today to build successful branded web IPs and it is easier towin market share from an empty space. He notices that a lot of companies have not really taken advantage of mobile spaces. He cited G-Blogs as an example as that site generates 10 million page views a month. It is also important for brand to get customers opt-in on a long term by building communities.

Nix emphasized as well that in their experience, those who combine Internet advertising with other forms, such as mobile marketing, have higher chances of success. He expressed high hopes on mobile TV but ponders on whether this would be subscriber-based or be supported by advertising-sponsored model. In the end, he shared that good campaigns are well planned. Companies should not make cost their number one means of choosing who should supply with digital marketing services. Finally, there are only two advertising mediums that are trackable - Internet and mobile.

Yota Mitsunobu of Dentsu shared changes in the purchase process as users can now directly act on and immediately make a purchase. Before, the conventional purchasing behavior can be referred to as AIDMA (attention, interest, desire, memory, and action). Today this has changed to AISAS (attention, interest, search, action, share). This means that consumers can now research for more information about a product before making that decision purchase. Once done and they have taken action, buyers can also share their experience through various means from blogs, word of mouth, short messages, among others.

Michael Bayle also delivered a presentation about Yahoo Go and Yahoo oneSearch. A lot of developments are happening in Yahoo since it launched its campaign "Be a better searcher". Michael is optimistic in delivering Yahoo through the mobile phone. He see it as an action-able environment where clickthroughs are higher that brands should take advantage of. Yahoo believes that they are capable of matching their inventory to the needs of their partners.

Enrique Gonzalez, CEO of IPVG, delivered a talk on marketing opportunities in online gaming. He gave an overview on how the online gaming industry is maturing stating also 25% of Internet users now play online games or at 4 million Internet gamers with revenue turnover of 1 billion pesos in 2006. The company is know for its popular games such as RANOnline (#1 Internet game in the Philippines based on our survey) Internet users and gamers growth population play a factor to the growth of the online gaming sector. Enrique predicts that there'll be 16 million Internet gamers in 2010. What makes a great game is one part content but a big part of it is a community that plays the game. Brands can advertise in game site, game launcher, home page of the game, include visual logo at the back of game such as billboards and merchandise. He also cited Wimpy's burger as a case study for creating virtual ads and items inside the game. It is also trackable as the gamers interaction with the brand is measurable.

Aileen Apolo, country consultant in the Philippines for Google, talks about how more and more companies globally are advertising online. However with so much developments in technology, Internet users usually multi-task. Advertisers have to work harder in making themselves relevant to their target audience. Aileen shared that they expect that there'll be 24 million Internet users in 2008 according to ACNielsen. She encourages users to adapt to consumer behavior and be found where the users are. Campaigns must be done off-line and online, complimenting each other or merged.

Ferdinand Dela Cruz, head of consumer business group of Globe Telecom, delivered a presentation on mobile advertising. This is where the mobile phone screen is being used as an advertising medium, similar to TV or radio. With 57% mobile phone penetration, it is growing target media. TV and radio can't be denied that it offers high visibility and reach. It also expires immediately, after airing. Print has fast turnaround but it can be busy and cluttered. Internet is a terrific and interactive medium but low PC penetration in the country is still limited at this point. Creating a personal advertising message is now the challenge and is the "Blue Ocean". Mobile advertising advantage to the telco is its ability to profile its user and select a set of customers based on characteristics such as gender, age group, location, telco spending, type of phone, among others. The mobile phone is useful as a tool to get a feedback from customers, respond to inquiries, guide or influence the customer in the buying process.

The mobile phone as an advertising tool can be complementary to traditional ads or tactical campaigns. It can be a more effective tool compared to mailers and traditional coupons. Brands can benefit through mobile marketing due to carrier's unparalleled reach. Customers can be given opportunity to get product and promo offers relevant to them, understand them better, avail of discount, and freebies. Very soon, mobile phone carriers will be able to provide contextual content discovery such as being able to offer your information and related services from keywords you punch in. There's an expected regional opportunities for marketers due to brand alliances that carriers have with neighboring countries.