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Tag Archives: Mobile
Virgin Love
20 FebFrom Marketing Magazine: Virgin dances into subscribers’ hearts
By Jeremy Lloyd
In the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, Virgin Mobile Canada is ready to dance in the streets for some flash mob loving in Toronto.
Just after 1:30 p.m. on February 10th, Virgin swarmed the intersection of Yonge and Dundas streets with 150 university students performing a choreographed routine to the song “Love Today” by Mika.
“We love doing this stuff, it’s so right for the brand,” said Andrew Bridge, director of brand communications for the mobile provider. “It’s fun and a bit irreverent. That’s very in line with what our brand does. We were talking about what kind of virtual Valentine card we could send to our members and post online…We hope to get some great buzz and that our members think its a nice touch point and feel part of the family.”
Video of the mob will be sent to Virgin subscribers and distributed virally.
The flash mob is part of a week-long program that puts Virgin’s angels–a staple of its most recent marketing campaign–in five cities to perform random acts of love. People in Toronto, Montreal Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa might receive a free ride on public transit, a paid-for parking spot or cup of coffee, or maybe even a hug.
“They’re just little things that say ‘this is the kind of love you get from Virgin Mobile and why are you settling for less?’ ” Bridge said.
TXT2GO
20 FebFrom Media in Canada: CBS Outdoor Canada taps into texters
by Nick Krewen
The new CBS Outdoor Canada platform txt2go has a magic number.
The OOH company announced yesterday it has added text-messaging functionality to its outdoor campaigns, allowing viewers to short code 77888 and a keyword to receive promotional information, location-based offers, contests or discounts. Clients can monitor the results of the SMS campaigns via a new mobile website, developed for the company by New York-based Rip Road.
“It’s a mobile call to action,” CBS Outdoor Canada’s director of marketing Michelle Erskine tells MiC. “It enhances outdoor’s ability to reach the audience with an interactivity we didn’t necessarily have before.”
With the world becoming increasingly adept at text messaging, Erskine says the time is right to launch the service, as its appeal ranges from youth and young adults to parents who have picked up the practice to stay current with their kids. Because of its low cost, it’s a media tool that appeals to smaller businesses as well, she says.
“It’s an ideal time to offer this because you’ve got a strong number of people who are active text messengers, and since we’re reaching people when they’re out of the house, reaching them with an interactive component is just a nice marriage,” says Erskine.
“A short code and a keyword are easier to remember than a phone number and a URL,” she explains further. “So much of the world now is mobile. Life is happening outside of the house, and for those that are living off their mobile device, this is the best way to reach them.”
Controversial Virgin
10 JanThis slideshow requires JavaScript.
From The Torontoist by Todd Aalgaard
You may have seen the posters around town hocking low-cost cellphones and Blackberrys in the most appealing way possible: with hot, ass-grabbing, face-sucking angels.
But now, two Canadian cities—Calgary, not surprisingly, and Mississauga, somewhat more so—have decided that Virgin Mobile’s steamy “Hook up fearlessly” ad campaign is a little too hot for their apparently chaste commuters. After being inundated by at least six whole complaints, Calgary Transit pulled the offending ads this week. Ron Collins, a spokesperson for Calgary Transit, cited the models’ lasciviously wandering hands as being over the line, telling the CBC that “It’s basically the positioning of the hands of the male on the female….In one, the hand’s on her buttocks. Another, it’s on her thigh area and that sort of thing and so we didn’t think that was appropriate.”
Virgin Mobile, however, has yet to be discouraged by all the torches and pitchforks and cries of won’t someone please think of the children??? “We’re very proud of our ads,” Chris Baines, spokesperson for Virgin Mobile, told CBC. “We don’t think there’s anything wrong with them. They are just young couples passionately embracing or kissing. It’s no more than that and they’re a lot of fun.”
Collins disagrees. “If you look at that through the eyes of a child using the transit system,” he told the Globe, “we didn’t think it was appropriate they should be subjected to that.” Kissing is fine, Virgin, but leave room for the Holy Spirit.
Just the right amount of hotness for Calgary, thank you very much.
Which seems to be the whole issue, since another of Virgin’s risque angel make-out posters, with more lip-locked shirt-lifting and less back-alley thigh-groping (a close-up of which is at right) has remained a fixture of Calgary’s network of bus shelters.
The thing is, while we don’t want to come down too hard on Cow Town’s morally upright sons and daughters, how surprising is such a puritanical move for a city that, as recently as October, got all uppity about transit ads for Ron Mueck’s gigantic wrinkly baby sculpture, an installation Collins described as “inappropriate”? Children riding the C-Train, after all, might be irreversibly scarred for life by—well, by themselves.
Mississauga, meanwhile, had two of the sexy promos yoinked in December, replaced with posters depicting two men doing a lot of “embracing,” as the Globe put it. (That ad is pictured at the very top of this post.) No less sexy, the man-on-man fun depicted in the ad was never shared with the streets or bus stops of Calgary, after the other, more controversial materials were removed. But the gay ad has cropped up in numerous high-traffic, high-profile locations all around Toronto—we just saw one at a transit shelter near the East York Town Centre on Overlea Boulevard. Just don’t tell Calgary. We still want to be their friend.
How do ya like them Apps, Toronto?
19 NovMobile Fringe,a mobile marketing company that specializes in the production and development of proprietary applications for the iPhone and Blackberry devices has designed 3 exclusive Toronto iPhone Apps: The Toronto Eaton Centre App, Mobile Yonge App and the iUofT App.
As of last week, The Eaton Centre iPhone App is now available through the App Store.
The Eaton Centre App features include:
* The Latest Store Promotion
* Gift Card Information
* Complete Store Directory
* Interactive Mall Map
* Twitter and Facebook Connections
See the App in action:
Mobile Fringe CEO, Steve Sorge stated: “The Mobile Fringe Retail Platform is a powerful mobile marketing solution that has been built for our clients to get to market quickly, deliver real time information, and extend their marketing reach to the mobile device.”
Mobile is part of an integrated multichannel marketing plan. Smartphones are turning into the preferred way to consume content. Users want information in the palm of their hand and the app is turning into the preferred way to do this with real location based marketing.
Earlier this year, Mobile Fringe along with the Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area launched the Mobile Yonge App.
The App features include:
* Easy Navigation to 1,000+ businesses in the area
* GPS mapping in seconds
* Map multiple stores and determine the best route
* Category driven searches to make things effortless
* Create a Favourites list for quick access to shops, restaurants, or stores
* One touch calling
* Once touch to a store’s website
* Stay connected with Downtown Yonge’s Facebook Page and Yonge Buzz
There are over 1,000 businesses in the Toronto Downtown Yonge area that are members and included in the app. They include large corporate stores like Best Buy, Jack Astor’s and Nike to local small business owners like The 3 Brewers. The main categories are Shop, Eat, Stay and Play.
“Together with the Toronto Downtown Yonge B.I.A., it is about giving citizens and visitors of the area a way to access directory and category information in seconds, and get to where they need to go fast,” said Steve Sorge. “There is no better place to do that than the mobile device when they are actually in that geographic location. The future possibilities include sending dynamic promotions and digital coupons.”
Mobile Fringe released another Toronto App this year with iUofT for students at the University of Toronto.
The iUofT app features:
* Campus departments and buildings
* GPS mapping – leveraging Google Maps
* Shops and Restaurants
* Campus Services
* Parking and TTC locations
* Access University Sports News
Mobile Fringe saw the potential for improved student communications and efficiency by introducing this application and changing the way students access information. Students are much more mobile than they used to be, they want facts in the palm of their hands. The goal is to give users the information quickly so they don’t waste valuable looking up data in the traditional methods.
Mobile Fringe website
