Ubiquitous cellphone spreads tentacles

Unfortunately when many marketers think of cellphones, they can't get their minds beyond using it simply to send “shotgun” SMS advertising messages.

Wider potential

But one canny fellow in the ad industry who has seen its wider potential is Mike Bosman, former head of FCB in SA and the US, latterly of TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris and now CEO of One Digital Media (ODM) in Cape Town.

An interesting new concept is currently being tested by ODM in partnership with Mobilitrix in SuperSpar stores in South Africa is mobile vouchering. This cuts right through the paper trail by delivering vouchers to shoppers on their cellphone, while in-store, to be redeemed at the till.

ODM is the sole digital signage provider for the Spar group and have rolled out in-store digital LCD displays across 134 SuperSpar stores across South Africa.

Ease of use

Mobilitrix, ODM, and SuperSpar are testing the market to judge the efficiency and ease-of-use of digital and mobile marketing including, mobile vouchers and coupons. If it all works out the way they expect, these tests with different brand owners will then be used as the basis to implement a national rollout of mobile vouchers and related in-store digital marketing concepts.

It works this way: As consumers enter the Spar, an ODM screen advertising products on special is one of the first things they see. The message “SMS and save” pops up regularly and fills the screen.

Responding immediately to the short and sharp video footage leads to an SMS voucher that pops into the consumer's inbox and when they get to the till, the cashier enters the code, much like any voucher system, and the discount is given.

Hanging from the ceiling in the stores are smaller screens, roughly the size of a home computer monitor, with each showing different content according to where they are placed, but all promoting the SMS and Save campaign.

Eye-to-eye

As shoppers meander down the aisles focused on products, they then come eye-to-eye with smaller screens the size of a standard book attached to the product shelves. These screens display advertising information relating to the product on shelf directly behind them.

The video and flash footage is eye-catching and especially imperative in terms of brand reinforcement, being flanked by the specific product being advertised. The footage is short, sharp and to the point and incorporated is the message: “SMS this word to this number and get, for instance, R5 off the product… immediately.”

In South Africa, 35 million people out of a population of 43 million are mobile phone users. “Brand owners will be able to receive info such as how many customers used the vouchers, which stores redeemed the most vouchers and what times/days the product purchase was made, which will allow for more effective and customer focused in-store campaigns,” says Bosman.