Save 50% on your Social Media Week pass! Join leading brands and agencies in NYC this April 9–11 to learn about emerging trends, tools and strategies. Register now—savings expire Dec. 11.
Since the start of the pandemic, I‘ve seen more brilliant brand ideas on mobile than I have seen in the last five years. Perhaps it’s because of the way quarantine shifted how people connect to each other and brands, but marketers are increasingly learning to play—and thrive—in the mobile space.
It’s finally time that we stop asking whether we can build brands on mobile and start focusing on how.
Drive sales
When you create the right advertising for the platform and invest at appropriate levels, you can drive volume. And in many cases, increase house-hold penetration.
Household brands like MAC Cosmetics are leaning into social commerce to launch new products and global campaigns. All of these brands proved they can drive real sales volume in their business using mobile-first tools and platforms, meeting people where they are.
The question is not whether mobile drives sales. Rather, the question is, what is the optimal mix for my investments across platforms, and how much higher can I keep optimizing my ROI?
Build brands
Brands are being built on mobile devices. You can picture them in your head: direct-to-consumer skin care, mattresses that arrive at your doorstep in a box and of course, ultra-comfortable shoes made of all-natural materials. These brands have momentum. They are current. And they are discovered by an audience whose default personal device is mobile.
Take Frito-Lay, an established brand finding ways to connect with consumers on mobile and driving market results. Defend the turf and even grow the consumer base by playing on mobile, where consumers spend the majority of their time.
A dynamic creative canvas
For today’s marketer, mastering the creative canvas requires an ongoing curiosity to test and understand emerging tools at their disposal.
In January, Barilla brilliantly teamed up with Spotify to curate a number of playlists that pair up with the cooking times for different types of noodles.
When you are ready to build your next campaign, remember the following:
- Focus on interaction: Mobile has changed advertising from a one-way push to an ongoing dialogue. On an active device, this includes building experiences that enable people to move seamlessly across devices, leverage multiple devices at once, or even tap into other apps or experiences that allow them to shop, watch and share.
- Build feedback: Mobile enables you to learn from your customers to inform your creative development through hypothesis-based lift and A/B testing. Consider moving the megaphone from your mouth to your ears and be ready to iterate based on how your message is received.
- Make and tell with culture: People create culture with the same device they are using to consume your message. Consider how you can engage, and empower them to capture, tell and spread your story for you.
- Build for people: Unlike other marketing mediums, mobile is closer to people than any before. Build experiences for what people want to achieve, not just what your brand is looking to achieve.
With the right teams and the right approach, its possibilities are limitless.
