Public Broadcasting Service has launched a mobile shopping site for PBS Kids products to simplify purchasing for parents interested in merchandise for shows such as Sesame Street, Sid the Science Kid and Curious George.

The site was built using HTML5 technology so it is optimized across browsers on iPhone and Android. The site builds on PBS Kids’ previous mobile efforts, including several different apps, as well as a PBS Kids shopping desktop site that was launched earlier this year.

“A mobile extension of the Shop was a natural choice for us as PBS Kids continues to offer more and more content wherever families are,” said Dawn Ciccone, senior director of brand licensing at PBS Kids, Arlington, VA.

“We’ve had great success in the mobile space with our educational apps for Kids as well; our apps have seen more than 1.4 million downloads and our popular PBS Kids Video for iPad App streams an average of two million video streams per day,” she said.

Customer data
PBS’ goals for the new mobile shopping site are to extend the PBS Kids brand, reinforce the learning goals of favorite PBS Kids series, and to help support free, educational PBS Kids programming.

The site was built on CellPoint Mobile’s mRetail platform, which will enable PBS to launch customized applications around new marketing campaigns for a more strategic approach to mobile shopping.

PBS will also be able to gain valuable customer data such as device types, carrier provider and mobile numbers so it can optimize future communications.

For example, PBS can associate users’ mobile numbers with the mobile shop to provide contextually relevant alerts on discounts and offers based on past product searches and purchases. The feature will be fully integrated into PBS’ multi-channel environment.

The mobile shop also provides ubiquity on mobile devices, simplifying the mobile site interface so it will load quickly on a variety of devices’ browsers and data connection speeds.

CellPoint Mobile will work with PBS on post launch cross-channel marketing approaches that will be coordinated around existing media channels including social media, email and TV.

The site can be found at m.shop.pbsKids.org.

The easy access, one-stop shopping site was designed with busy moms on the go in mind.

“Parents have repeatedly asked us for a one-stop shop for all things PBS Kids, which is why we launched the PBS Kids Shop site earlier this year,” Ms. Ciccone said.

“We also know that busy parents rely on mobile devices to help get things done; a survey we did recently found that 26 percent of parents of 2- to 10-year-olds have used or plan to use a mobile phone for their shopping needs in the next three months,” she said.

“So we’re excited to offer the PBS Kids Shop mobile site, now accessible via any Web-enabled mobile device, which lets parents browse and buy from the convenience of their phone just in time for the busy holiday shopping season.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York