MOBILE MARKETING IN PRACTISE: Virgin- “Off-Deck” Rich-Media Mobile Advertising Course Faculty: Mrs Yasmin Malik Venue: IBA City Campus, Karachi Course Start Date: Spring 2012 (Feb 1) MIS553: Mobile Marketing Strategies

Strategy at The Virgin Group: “Reckless Nor Random”?  The Virgin Group: one of the most recognised and respected brands in the world  Created in 1970 by Sir Richard Branson and a leading branded venture capital organisation  Some of the famous Virgin brands (among the 300+) include:  “Contrary to what some people may think, our constantly expanding and eclectic (i.e. deriving ideas/style from a broad and diverse range of sources) empire is neither random nor reckless.” (Source:  “To some traditionalists, the Virgin management style may not seem hard headed enough. To them, the fact that Virgin has minimal management layers, no bureaucracy, a tiny board and no massive global HQ is an anathema. But it works for us!”– Sir Richard Branson,

Mobile Strategy at Virgin Media  Virgin Media UK: TV (cable), broadband, phone and mobile  The first company in the UK to offer all of the above from one place i.e. “quadruple-play” media offerings  Can be compared to the way PTCL has bundled its services to create new dynamics in the local market (“triple-play” as the mobile service is offered by sister concern Ufone)  Compete directly with Sky which offers similar services but has a much stronger foothold on media in terms of its Sky News and Sky Sports channels – the latter is the leader in transmission rights to most sporting events  As a result, Virgin Media is always trying to upstage Sky wrt Sports in particular  Challenge: How do we differentiate ourselves for the upcoming English Premier League (Aug 14, 2010 till May 2, 2011)?  Objective: to get year old males to opt for Virgin Media to watch the Premier League rather than Sky Sports  Strategy:

Execution of “Sports Uptake” via Off-Deck Mobile Advertising  The mobile ad itself is not at all centered on football!  But the lead up to it, is…  Virgin Media collaborated with the London based ad agency 4 th Screen Advertising  Target profile and handset-specific targeting: year old football fans and the iPhone  They suggested the inclusion of a “calendar sync” app which would provide those who downloaded it with the fixture list of televised Premier League games directly onto their iPhone calendar  One option was to do this via banner ads on Virgin’s own mobile site which was attracting a good rate of traffic already  However, instead they decided to “100% take over” The Guardian’s ( mobile portal to capitalize the reach of the campaign via the Guardian’s excellent mobile presence as a direct challenge to Skywww.guardian.co.uk  4 th Screen Advertising knew that 70% of the consumers browsing The Guardian’s mobile portal were iPhone users  They also knew that in the world of media portals, The Guardian (and hence The Guardian brand) had the best value proposition for advertisers

100% Take Over of The Guardian’s Mobile Portal The Guardian’s mobile portal the way it looks normally The Guardian’s mobile portal after 100% take-over by Virgin Media

Mechanics & “Tactics” of the Campaign  Football fans could click on the full page banner ad  This would run the mobile ad which would expand into full view to make full use of the iPhone screen size  After watching the mobile video ad, users had two “calls-to-action”:  Find out more about Virgin Media Football Packages  Sync televised games with iPhone calendar (entire season’s sporting calendar, game fixtures, teams, kick-off times )  Question: How was the success of these two calls-to-action measured in practise…?  Results:  During the first quarter of the Premier League (i.e. upto Dec 2010) Virgin Media added 100,000 Sky premium subscribers to reach a total of 725,000  Campaign demonstrated how new rich media formats can drive new levels of consumer engagement