Product category:
IT for sales and marketing
News Release from: Magnet Harlequin | Subject: Real world connection mobile technology
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 05 September 2007
Press push uses revolutionary mobile
technology
The launch of Universal's eagerly awaited movie 'The Bourne Ultimatum' heralded the first use of mobile picture recognition technology in press advertising.
Following on from the huge success of the first two Bourne movies that took $501 million at the box office, The Bourne Ultimatum has already taken $100m in the USA box office, the highest August opener on record Universal used 'real world connection' mobile technology to make The Bourne Ultimatum's press advertisements digitally interactive
This article was originally published on Marketingservicestalk on 19 Apr 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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A picture recognition algorithm was used to turn the mobile device into an interactive mouse so that readers of The Times and other national press titles could 'click' on the advertisement.
Universal is the first brand to use this technology.
Readers engaged with Jason Bourne to get free mobile content (movie trailer, wallpapers and screensavers).
It took less than 60 seconds to get a response.
All readers needed to do when they saw The Bourne Ultimatum advertisement was to take a picture of the ad using their mobile phone and send it via MMS to Jason Bourne's special mobile number - 82222.
The algorithm technology automatically identified if they had sent the correct image, as well as the type of phone they had, and then offered them the appropriate free content, optimised for their specific device.
If they shot an incorrect image they would be informed of this and asked to try again.
Picture recognition technology is a real breakthrough for marketing and a valuable addition to the marketing mix.
Unlike other mobile (real world connection) technologies that use barcodes or require the consumer to download an application to their phone, picture recognition requires neither and can be seamlessly incorporated into existing campaigns.
The technology uses an algorithm to match the consumer's picture to the promotional image logged on the database - even partial images taken in poor light or at an angle Are recognisable.
Scott Seaborn, head of marketing technologies at Magnet Harlequin, puts the potential of this technology in context.
"In the UK 40 per cent of brands have already used SMS messaging, which has been extremely successful.
"One brand last year enjoyed more than 12 million responses from a single campaign.
"Mobile is the new internet and there are far more handsets in the UK than PCs - so we know the potential for this kind of activity is huge.
"Going forward, everyone will know that they can snap an image and engage with our clients if they want to".
This is the first time that marketers have enabled print ads to allow consumers to interact with their brands in this way.
The technology, with its real time delivery and reporting structure, could inspire a new generation of media analytics.
Real world analytics systems give brands a true picture of which advertisements are working best for them, and where those ads are located geographically.
Magnet Harlequin is a marketing technology agency.
Our strength lies in our ability to get to the bottom of the problems and issues that marketers (and businesses) have, and in creating the right blend of technical and creative tools to achieve practical and successful solutions to address these.
Magnet Harlequin began life nearly 30 years ago in creative production.
Ever since we have been developing technical tools and thinking creatively to address our clients' business and communications issues.
This heritage has provided us with an innate ability to use the right blend of tools at the right time.
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