H&M aims to build awareness and sales around a new spring collection, but a simple mobile experience keeps the campaign from reaching the same potential as the desktop and tablet effort.

H&M is promoting its spring collection of clothing that features model Miranda Kerr with a mobile advertising campaign within Hearst Corp.-owned Elle’s mobile site. H&M has created two distinctly different experiences for the campaign on both mobile and tablet/PC, with the former solely including commerce-enabled features.

“These marketing approaches have the potential to ignite a consumer curiosity that not only encourages them to interact with and consume more video, it also opens the door to purchase,” said Joline McGoldrick, research director at Millward Brown Digital, New York.

Ms. McGoldrick is not affiliated with H&M. She spoke based on her expertise on the subject.

H&M did not respond to press inquiries.

Spring shopping
Banner ads show consumers several looks from the spring collection, and a click-through on an ad directs consumers to a landing page featuring the spring collection on the retailer’s mobile site.

From there, consumers can scroll through six different looks.

Each look includes a menu button at the bottom of the page where consumers can view all of the spring products. Clicking through on a piece of clothing directs consumers to a product page, where they can see more images of the item and checkout straight through on H&M’s mobile site.

A piece of content at the bottom of the page is labeled with a picture of a lock and can only be accessed from a desktop or tablet.

The desktop and tablet experience includes additional information about the spring collection and a minute-long campaign video that can be shared via Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Although there is obviously less room for the campaign on smartphones’ screens, H&M is likely limiting some of the spring collection’s marketing potential by not including the video and social elements on mobile.

The appetite for mobile video continues to grow as more consumers turn to their smartphones and tablets to watch content.

In fact, a new report from Ooyala finds that mobile and tablet video represented one-fourth of all online viewing during the fourth-quarter of 2013.

Additionally, the research suggests that mobile and tablet watching will represent more than 50 percent of viewing by 2016.

By incorporating the video component on mobile, H&M could give shoppers a more interactive experience to ultimately convert.

Building up mobile steam?
H&M has been building up its mobile advertising efforts significantly over the past few years to capitalize on sales.

Last year, H&M ran a rewards-based mobile advertising campaign to promote a new bodywear collection from David Beckham. In exchange for watching a video, consumers could receive points that can be redeemed for gift cards (see story).

Additionally, the brand ran location-based mobile ads in 2012 as part of a bigger Instagram contest in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles (see story).

“Mobile can be a great opportunity for video consumption, especially in today’s mobile-first world,” Ms. McGoldrick said.

“Many people use tablets or smartphones to browse and shop while they do other things, such as watching TV,” she said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York