The session titled, “Mobile Advertising Immersion – Takeaways from a Living Case Study,” showcased a campaign that Hardee’s ran after winning a mobile advertising program worth more than $55,000.

“Hardee’s is really a quality food and the brand has a unique tone and attitude,” said Cathy Kellner-Diaz, group account director at Mendelsohn Zien Advertising, Hardee’s Los Angeles-based agency. “Hardee’s is bold and ballsey.

“We get a lot of consumer feedback about our advertising and the program we are presenting today is very representative of our brand,” she said.

The Biscuit Holes mobile program was a comprehensive mobile campaign, designed to be integrated with television and an online campaign for Hardee’s.

The point was to get consumers to help Hardee’s pick a name for its new sweet biscuits.

Mendelsohn Zen provided the campaign’s strategy, iLoop Mobile built an interactive mobile site, Jumptap placed targeted mobile media and InsightExpress conducted campaign effectiveness research.

The goals of the mobile aspect of the campaign were to seamlessly integrate mobile with TV, online and in-store promotions.

The mobile aspect was meant to serve as just an additional way that consumers can get involved in the Name Our Holes program. Also, Hardee’s wanted to raise awareness of the Biscuit Holes.

Here is one of the TV spots from the campaign.

ILoop Mobile worked with Hardee’s and its agency to build a mobile site that fits the concept of the online site and utilized the same URL.

Also, iLoop made sure that the mobile site was able to differentiate feature phones and smartphones and served a WAP or mobile site to ensure optimal user experience.

The mobile site was meant to grow brand awareness through the new channel and iLoop even optimized data capture. There was a form consumers filled out on the WAP where they provided information such as their name, mobile number and their location.

This enabled opportunity for future contact with the consumer.

The brand was able to drive traffic to its stores through the locate a store feature on the site.

For consumers, adding a mobile component to the campaign lets them have a firsthand involvement with Hardee’s.

They were able to submit original names for the Biscuit Holes via the channel they preferred – online or mobile.

“What we built was a set parameter of what Hardee’s was doing on the Web,” said Michael Ahearn, vice president of marketing and communications for iLoop Mobile. “With the right strategy you can make the same branded experience on mobile as on the Web.

“We built out involvement with the brand and replicated the Web experience on mobile and we also created integration with the Web data by unifying online and mobile,” he said.

The Hardee’s mobile site site had a tell-a-friend feature which let consumers share the site. Consumers could also view the Hardee’s TV spots on the mobile site.

Jumptap premium targeted media placement on mobile sites such as The Score Mobile, Mocospace, Boost Mobile, LimeLife and WeatherBug made it possible for Hardee’s to target males ages 18-34.
The campaign was geotargeted to Hardee’s locations in key markets across the U.S.

Over the 8 weeks of the campaign, the mobile site saw 11,325 visits of which 6,754 were unique visitors.

Additionally, there were 21,086 page views on the mobile site. There were 828 product names submitted to the site and 407 people opted-in for SMS alerts from Hardee’s. Also 143 mobile greetings were sent from the site.

“Overall, the campaign’s message resonated well with the mobile audience,” said Joy Liuzzo, director of marketing and mobile research at Insight Express, New York. “Message association increased 7 percentage points.

“Within the target audience of males ages 18-34, aided awareness increased nine percentage points,” she said. “The landing page attracted engaged consumers and educated them on the Hardee’s campaign message.

“The campaign motivated 18-24 year olds to become more aware and want to purchase a product.”

Additionally, Ms. Liuzzo said that survey respondents who visited the landing page showed significant increases in all brand metrics such as unaided and aided awareness, mobile ad awareness, message association and purchase intent.

Ms. Kellner-Diaz said that the free campaign taught Hardee’s about mobile and that the brand is going to invest in it from now on.

“Choose the best partners who are knowledgeable, thorough and able to work as a team,” Ms. Kellner-Diaz said. “Create a well integrated program that provides a good user experience.”

Programs should be simple to understand and should invite participation.

“Select media strategically because you could have a great message that doesn’t reach consumers,” said Paran Johar chief marketing officer of Jumptap, New York. “We were working with so many partners and they were all great and we collaborated really well.

Ms. Kellner-Diaz said that if she was to go back and do it differently she would shorten the length of media to optimize the message.

“I think we would also include a coupon or other traffic driver to award participants,” Ms. Kellner-Diaz said. “Also, we should have continued to engage the consumers from collected SMS data.”