| Direct and Online Marketing: Building Direct Customer Relationships 507

Chapter 17 | Direct and Online Marketing: Building Direct Customer Relationships 507

you decide you can’t live without a new set of

Most consumers are initially skeptical K2 skis or a two-man Hoo-Doo tent.”

Increasingly, consumers are using their

phones as in-store shopping aids, and retailers about receiving mobile ad messages. Their first For entertainment, carmaker Audi offers

are responding accordingly. For example, reaction is likely to be “Don’t call me. I’ll call you the Audi A4 Driving Challenge game, which

while strolling among the bookshelves at the (yeah, right).” But they often change their features a tiny A4 that maneuvers its way

local Barnes & Noble store, you can now snap minds if the ads deliver value in the form of use- through different driving courses—to steer,

a photo of any book cover that strikes your in- ful brand and shopping information, entertain- you tilt your phone right or left. Audi claims

terest and use a Barnes & Noble app to learn ing content, or discounted prices and coupons that the app has been downloaded nearly

more about it. The app uses image-recognition for their favorite products and services. Most three million times since it was introduced, re-

software to recognize the book and then al- mobile marketing efforts target only consumers sulting in 400,000 visitors to the Audi A4

most instantly pulls up user reviews from who voluntarily opt in or who download appli- iPhone Web site.

Barnesandnoble.com to help shoppers decide cations. In the increasingly cluttered mobile mar- One of the most effective mobile market-

whether to buy. “We’ve seen a huge uplift in keting space, customers just won’t do that ing applications is Kraft’s iFood Assistant,

reservations of books for purchase in physical unless they see real value in it. The challenge for which provides easy-to-prepare recipes for

stores, as well as buying, from the . . . app marketers: Develop useful and engaging mobile food shoppers on the go. It supplies advice on

since we launched it,” says the chain’s vice marketing applications that make customers say how to prepare some 7,000 simple but satisfy-

“Do call me, please. Or, I will call you.” ing meals—at three meals a day, that’s almost

president for digital devices.

20 years worth of recipes. The iFood Assistant will even give you directions to local stores. Of

Sources: Adapted extract, quotes, and other information from Richard Westlund, “Mobile on Fast Forward,”

course, most of the meals call for ingredients

Brandweek, March 15, 2010, pp. M1–M5; Joseph De Avila, “Please Hold, My Cell Phone Is Buying a Gift,” Wall

that just happened to be Kraft brands. The

Street Journal, December 9, 2008, p. D1; Todd Wasserman, “I’m on the Phone!” Adweek, February 23, 2009,

iFood Assistant app cost Kraft less than pp. 6–7; Alice Z. Cuneo, “Scramble for Content Drives Mobile,” Advertising Age, October 24, 2005, p. S6; Jen

Arnoff, “Wising Up to Smart Phones,” News & Observer (Raleigh), April 22, 2009, p. 5B; Carol Angrisani, “Priced

$100,000 to create but has engaged millions

to Cell,” Supermarket News, June 1, 2009, p. 28; Reena Jana, “Retailers Are Learning to Love Smartphones,”

of shoppers, providing great marketing oppor-

Businessweek, October 26, 2009, p. 49; and www.usaa.com/inet/ent_utils/McStaticPages?key⫽ deposit_at_

tunities for Kraft and its brands.

mobile_main, accessed November 2010.

expert. “The industry needs to work out smart and clever ways to engage people on mo- biles.” The key is to provide genuinely useful information and offers that will make con- sumers want to opt in or call in. One study found that 42 percent of cell phone users are open to mobile advertising if it’s relevant. 24