While instant messaging bots have become one of the most-talked-about new media applications for advertising, a few marketers are tapping into the popularity of IM from a different angle -- by wrapping instant messaging inside a larger branded "experience."
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo! has been on a tear of late, signing Warner Bros., Ford, Kellogg and Adidas to marketing deals based on its public IM service. Last week, the portal added a new promotion for the Touchstone feature film "The Hot Chick" to its lineup.
The efforts center around "IMVironments," customized animated skins and games playable over IM.
For Ford, the company promoted the Thunderbird used in the new James Bond adventure, "Die Another Day," with a skin that plays the character's signature Henry Mancini theme song, and features an animated version of the British superspy himself, who appears when users "buzz" each other. The IMVironment also allows users to view different angles of the vehicle, and offers entries into a sweepstakes to win a limited edition model.
For Adidas, Yahoo!'s IMVironment promoted the new T-Mac 2 basketball sneaker with a skin that plays a streaming video version of the shoe's television commercial, starring its namesake, Tracy McGrady. An earlier Verizon IMVironment translates users' messages into SMS shorthand-style chat.
A year after the launch of IMVironments with version 5.0 of the portal's IM client, the marketing device has drawn the attention of dozens of advertisers. Yahoo! won't disclose terms of the agreements, but spokespeople said one of the product's chief selling point is the heightened level of user interaction that comes with linking ads into IM environments.
"Compared to a banner, it's much more interactive," said Yahoo! Messaging Products Director Lisa Pollock. "People are interacting more with a brand and with characters, making it very appealing to marketers, as opposed to a banner, which is more static. You have communications integrated into that experience -- it's an experiential marketing tool, as opposed to something that's unidirectional."
Yahoo!'s advertisers aren't the only ones aiming to tap into that same sort of interactive marketing. On Friday, Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia concluded its fourth annual multi-channel adventure competition, aimed at pushing next-generation products like Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS).
The three-week-long Nokia Game 2002 -- designed by the handset manufacturer and its ad agency, Euro RSCG -- combined SMS, instant messaging, e-mail and the Web to create an immersive competition. Players could be contacted at any time of day with clues and puzzles that they needed to decipher in order to advance, with hundreds of new Nokia 3650 multimedia phones up for grabs for the winners.
Jabber Inc. was brought in to handle messaging and to power the game's official chat room, while IBM Global Services, BT and other vendors provided call center, SMS and e-mail infrastructure support.
Nokia has been running such efforts yearly since 1998 to highlight service offerings and as a platform for brand marketing. Last year, for instance, the company used the game to highlight new Bluetooth capabilities in its phones. The campaigns, which spawned fan sites, IRC chat rooms and thousands of late-night SMS sessions, also tie in neatly to Nokia's long-running corporate slogan, "Connecting People."
"This year's Nokia Game was a huge success ... the collaborative spirit of previous years was present again, with players connecting, competing and collaborating to reach the finals, " said Pekka Rantala, vice president of marketing services at Nokia Mobile Phones. "This type of promotional activity is an excellent fit with our brand promise of connecting people and reflects the growing importance of entertainment in mobile services."
With each successive competition, Nokia has added increasing levels of interactivity -- this year, making MMS and Jabber-based chat part of the game. As a result, the competitions have seen steadily climbing participation rates. The company said a record million customers signed on to participate in this year's game, from 25 European and Middle Eastern countries -- and that it had been forced to turn away additional players.
Last year's effort, which netted Nokia and Euro RSCG a Gold Lion Direct at Cannes for their work, attracted about 600,000 participants.
Nokia Game 2002 proved so successful that the company is already taking signups for next year's competition. In the meantime, it's aiming to build on the momentum started by the game by offering prizes to players to compete in creating the most-forwarded MMS message.
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