Bill Hanifin
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The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is the “world’s biggest celebration of creativity in communications” and is a global meeting of advertising professionals and the advertisers they serve. The event is set to hold somewhere around its 60th edition in Cannes, France June 17-20. Over 28,000 entries in a variety of categories will be showcased and judged, with the winners basking in a combination of industry admiration and business opportunity.
For the first time in the history of Lions, there is a category for mobile. Now I don’t feel as bad about the number of Loyalty Marketing professionals who cross their eyes at me when I ask them for their Twitter handle. Even the most avant-garde gathering of advertising leaders has just managed to wedge in the most promising and dynamic communications channel in decades.
You probably know this, but smartphone sales are accelerating and are reaching a tipping point where they will be the standard rather than the toy of the privileged. In turn, spend on mobile marketing is up 116% over the past year according to Velti, one mobile provider attending the show.
The way most of us have interacted with mobile advertising is via one of the many apps we’ve downloaded on our smartphones or while being interrupted by an ad as we waited to watch a video. The first generation of mobile advertising has focused on delivering traditionally styled ads positioned in a new channel. So, while mobile holds promise, the executions to date leave us wanting a bit, looking for the timeliness, the relevancy, the fun that is in the fabric of mobile communications.
Kiip offers to deliver on these promises, with a new approach to mobile advertising that is targeted as a game developer’s best friend, but has potential for use by a wider audience of brands. In 2011, Kiip was named one of “4 Hot Online Ad Companies to Put on Your Watch List” by Forbes and their presence at Lions might be yet another milestone in their development. You can learn more about the benefits of Kiip in this video here.
In short, Kiip enables the developer of a game that you can enjoy on the mobile handset to sprinkle real rewards for real stuff and serve it up tied to achievements within the game. Win a new badge, complete a conquest, or achieve a new level and you receive a reward, not just for an artificial game currency, but for real world stuff. When Kiip’s banners appear in a game, the gamer stands to win freebies from notable brands, from Pepsi, Best Buy and Disney and more. As example, Pepsi offered a free bottle of Propel water inside the MapMyFitness app for every eight miles run by a user. What athlete wouldn’t appreciate some timely hydration after a long run?
We all know that “mobile” is the channel of the future and that it is highly likely that for most Millennials “don’t leave home without it” will trigger thoughts of a mobile handset, not a credit card. Innovators like Kiip, which link familiar and valuable rewards with consumers and deliver them in an entirely new manner are changing the future of mobile advertising.
Kiip has the potential to enable brands to engage with consumers in a more timely and relevant manner, each an essential element of the Social Loyalty model. In the process a new view on product sponsorship is cracked open, giving brands, game developers, and yes, business, another channel to reach consumers.
