The company is running the campaign within the Flixster iPhone application. Summit Entertainment is following in the footsteps of other studios that are also using mobile advertising to drive film awareness.

 “This new mobile campaign has some attractive features and is particularly attractive to family audiences as this movie is based on a family’s true story,” said Isabella Lin, content director at Appitalism, New York.

“From this new mobile campaign, users can discover that the movie is about an unusual family journey in a foreign country,” she said. “From the main ad screen, users can learn that this movie is about family survival, and will certainly be moved with some content, so family movie fans, this is definitely for you.”

Ms. Lin is not affiliated with Summit. She commented based on his expertise on the subject.

Summit Entertainment did not respond to press inquiries.

Driving engagement
The mobile ad promotes the new film, features its Golden Globe nominations and encourages consumers to get tickets to see the movie.

When consumers tap on the mobile ad, they are redirected to the company’s Web site instead of a mobile-optimized page.

Furthermore, the campaign shows no buttons that consumers can tap on to purchase tickets.

Rather, the initiative lets consumers watch the trailer and learn more about the cast.

While Summit may have had great intentions for the campaign, they fall short.

The company would have been better off leading consumers to Fandango’s mobile site where they would be able to purchase tickets.

It is very important for marketers to optimize content for their mobile campaigns.

Nowadays, consumers do not like to pinch-and-zoom. Doing so takes away from the user experience.

Marketers need to continually test their campaigns to make sure the user experience is up-to-par.

When it comes to mobile, the overall user experience is key and many times, marketers forget to optimize their content – a big no-no in mobile.

A mobile campaign needs to be optimized fully, from beginning to end, in order for it to be a success.

“Summit Entertainment running a campaign for its new film is smart and it will definitely benefit them and improve their box office results,” Ms. Lin said.

“It is a shame that the company didn’t create a mobile-optimized landing page for this movie as this would made finding out about the movie on your smartphone even more easy and comfortable,” she said. 

Final Take
Rimma Kats is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York