Musings Of A Marketer

I was writing not so long ago, about Jon Lunetta trying to approach the Russian mobile marketers here in Russia, and how slow (actually zero response) the latter were… This is the tendency with mobile marketing here in Russia: companies open for a certain client - be it a old buddy or good partner from previous business, and that client remains a very major one - if not the only one. Basically, the methods of mobile advertising would focus on text-to-win campaigns.

Just today I noticed a poster advertising a mobile marketing campaign for a beer brand Velkopopovitskiy Kozel. And this is the first campaign that I have in memory, which focuses on something more than simple text-to-win. This campaign attempts to create a certain community around the brand. The technique is as follows: you need to sms 2 codes to a short number (priced at the level of ordinary sms) to be able to create a virtual tavern. Here is where you invite your friends, who need to have a couple of beers at your tavern (i.e. sms a couple of codes to the shortcode). In the end the winner (announced every day, according to the number of friends who visit your tavern) receives a prize. What is not so good about the campaign is that it only lasts 2 months - not so smart if you wish to build a community around your brand. I guess this was not the idea… Another problem is the campaign’s website. It’s nice, cute and has got a bit of humour. But it’s soooo slow - must be lighter, definitely.

Anyway, good to see that the innovative methods are acquired around here. Wether this is a single exception or a tendency - we should see, but anyway. Unfortunately, this cool idea comes again from a beer brand, which means that the major threat for businesses come not from competition but from legislative restrictions. The bonds imposed on alcoholic brands make the players keep searching for new ways of advertising, while the industries where legislation is more liberal are still seeing sweet dreams of prosperity, without having to compete with their peers, the clients or government… None needs to do anything as long as everyone is happy…