6 Superior Mobile Marketing Examples
(This article was originally published on Udonis’ blog.)
You might say that nowadays, being innovative in marketing is not easy. And you would be correct. However, there will always be cases where people will amaze you with their creativity. In this article, I’m going to show you the most superior mobile marketing examples.
1. AI Dance Challenge — Sway + Doritos
To start off, I’m going to present to you a very innovative mobile marketing example — how to promote and sell Doritos’ new Cool Ranch tortilla chips in an innovative way?
In order to promote Doritos’ new Cool Ranch tortilla chips, the company hired rapper Lil Nas X and actor Sam Elliot.
They had a dance battle over the tortilla chips, showing off their signature moves from the music video for the song Old Town Road. This campaign took place in January 2020, just before the Super Bowl.
Doritos has decided to choose the song Old Town Road because it was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 17 weeks straight.
Now, where were the mobile users in this campaign?
PepsiCo’s Doritos brand came up with an app called Sway: Magic Dance. In this app, users could create videos based on Lil Nas X’s and Sam Elliot’s signature dance moves shown in the Super Bowl ad.
Ricky Wong, a co-founder of Sway, explained that they had trained a neural network to capture a sequence of dance movements.
When users download Sway, they must hold their smartphones steady and film their movements for 30 seconds so that the deep learning software can later convert them into a deep fake.
After the video material is uploaded, users can choose a dance from Sway’s gallery they want to recreate.
And then, Sway’s deep learning software makes a video or a gif of the user copying Lil Nas X’s or Sam Elliot’s dance moves.
How Was the AI Dance Challenge Received?
All Dorito Super Bowl commercials end with a #CoolRanchDance, which hints to users that they could create their own dance videos to share on social media, especially on TikTok.
According to Statista’s statistics from September 2021, most TikTok users belong to the young demographic, ranging from 18 to 24 years old.
Also, TikTok is best known for its younger population doing various dances, which created a perfect ground for Doritos’ campaign.
On TikTok, the #CoolRanchDance has amassed more than 7.3 billion views, with the official campaign’s sound clip.
Most of these videos featured some kind of transformation into western clothes, dance moves, and of course, a bag of Cool Ranch tortilla chips.
More than 3,000 users have created these dance videos. This user-generated content helps brands massively.
It doesn’t cost them anything, but it increases the follower count, encourages engagement, and, most importantly, builds trust with users.
However, Dorito also asked some influencers for help.
One of those influencers was Montana Tucker, who has 2.2 million followers on TikTok. Her video includes a western-style transformation, and it has gathered more than 229,000 likes and more than 1100 comments.
Furthermore, according to Google Analytics, Old Town Road was the most searched song lyric on February 2nd, 2020, which was the day when the Super Bowl began. Moreover, even though TikTok was Doritos’ primary social media, Twitter dancers were also active in the campaign.
Twitter data, according to Salesforce, showed that the Cool Ranch ad was the 10th most discussed in that period.
At the beginning of February 2020, the #CoolRanchDance generated more than 11,000 mentions on Twitter. However, on Instagram, the trend was slightly less popular, having just over 500 posts with the #CoolRanchDance tag.
2. Chipotle Together + Zoom
Chipotle’s “Chipotle Together” campaign debuted in March 2020, during the COVID-19 outbreak. The pandemic had an impact on every industry, including Chipotle. However, Chipotle did not give up.
On March 16th, 2021, Chipotle announced their lunch parties and called them “Chipotle Together”. The entire event was hosted by a video–conference app, Zoom.
The parties lasted for a whole week, from March 15th to 19th. Moreover, Chipotle prepared Q&As, special celebrity guests, and free entree giveaways, which put it on a list of good mobile marketing examples.
On the first day, Chipotle invited Colton Underwood, a celebrity from the TV show The Bachelor.
Unfortunately, not everyone could join, Chipotle noted, as there was a limit of 3,000 people on the Zoom platform.
As if the party wasn’t enough, Chipotle also offered free delivery on any order of $10 or more through the Chipotle mobile app.
Zooming in on the Campaign
Chipotle has capitalized on a growing trend of live-streaming, particularly during the pandemic.
The live-streaming market is growing, with a projected value of $60 billion by 2026.
As the pandemic progressed, the live-streaming trend allowed people to watch cooking shows, concerts, exercise classes, and so much more while being stuck at home.
During the week when Chipotle collaborated with Zoom, Google Trends showed that search for Chipotle and Zoom significantly increased:
Chipotle’s chief marketing officer, Chris Brandt, revealed the strategy behind Chipotle’s campaign. He said that during the pandemic and first lockdowns, the company had to decide how to navigate the new situation.
Then, they saw that Zoom was getting tons of downloads. According to BusinessofApps, Zoom had 200 million daily users just in March of 2020.
Furthermore, Brandt stated that they had realized delivery would be the next big thing, so they had put the “free delivery” message on every creative piece in the marketing sector, including the Zoom campaign.
According to Google Trends, this strategy appeared to be a success.
Chipotle-related queries during this time have included “Chipotle free delivery” and “Chipotle Covid-19”. When compared to previous weeks, the number of free delivery queries increased by 650%.
Aside from Zoom, Brandt stated that they had increased their investments in Twitch, Facebook, and Instagram. He clarified that the majority of their customers were Millennials and Generation Z.
He said that they had put in a lot of effort to measure everything and predict the outcomes. Mostly, Brandt said, by looking at real-time ROI and checking where to put more money.
3. The Motley Fool AR Postcard Mobile Marketing Example
The Motley Fool, a private financial and investing advice firm, created an AR postcard.
Because the Motley Fool’s mission is to help people live a better life and make wise investments for the future, the AR postcard focused on the possibility of early retirement.
The goal of this campaign was to send the existing customers to the promotion of a new service offering.
Additionally, the Motley Fool wanted to get users to engage and increase awareness around the service launch ahead of membership renewals.
Motley Fool’s user base received the physical postcards in the mail. At that point, they could scan the postcard with a smartphone using AR technology.
Once the users scanned the postcard, they were presented with three options: relax at the beach, work on my golf swing, or explore the mountains.
Depending on what the user would choose on their smartphones, the AR technology would show a different scenario in the real postcard, which makes this campaign belong on a list of good mobile marketing examples.
The Motley Fool’s Postcards — Have They Reached Customers’ Mailboxes?
The Motley Fool wanted to increase customer retention as one of the campaign marketing goals.
Aircards claimed to have achieved high engagement rates through AR print marketing.
Furthermore, they stated that it had been apparent that the AR experience would generate a highly engaged audience with a good average dwell time on the page.
According to their case study, the Motley Fool AR postcard campaign has ended with a 40.3% engagement rate and 2.08 times more page views per user.
Moreover, they reported that the users had spent approximately two minutes inside the AR experience.
4. BON V!V Spiked Seltzer AR Out-of-Home Advertising Campaign
Bon V!V is a US-based company that sells alcoholic beverages. In 2020, they jumped on the AR bandwagon, creating an Out-of-Home advertising campaign for their spiked seltzers.
It worked by having users visit one of their real-life stations — a wall with a mural displaying a QR code.
However, Aircards stated that their AR campaign had also featured a secondary activation channel.
The users were able to activate the experience straight from a social media link and see the 3D content anywhere.
The AR portion consisted of a full 3D vending machine with interactive animations.
People could select a seltzer flavor they like and then watch the animations unroll in front of them.
Once the users choose a drink, they would get a CTA that would invite them to visit the nearest retail stores or order the drink online.
The nearby store locations were shown on a map inside the AR experience.
By tapping on any of the stores displayed on the map, the user’s Google Maps app would open, showing where the store can be found.
The other option was an instant online purchase. The users could immediately buy their chosen seltzer and receive the delivery within a couple of hours.
BON V!V Seltzer — One of the Better Mobile Marketing Examples Featuring AR
Both The Motley Fool and BON V!V Seltzer campaigns on this list were made by Aircards. They made sure they had included metrics tracking software within the AR experience.
These analytics, as they stated, included in-depth user engagement and geo-location analytics, which were presented to the brand.
However, the exact numbers and values in the campaign are still unknown to the public.
But one can only guess that the campaign ended well. Why?
According to AR Insider’s research, AR can boost ad conversion by 300% compared to other forms of digital marketing.
Therefore, a lot of brands opt for this option since the ad revenue in AR’s market size worldwide is supposed to reach almost $200 billion by 2025. (Statista)
Moreover, AR advertising is usually more affordable and immersive than print advertising.
That means that this campaign was more affordable than the Motley Fool one, which was a combination of both types of advertising.
Naturally, as with any advertising campaign, the price of an ad depends on its quality.
A simple AR project, according to RubyGarage, can cost around $5,000 to develop. In comparison, a more sophisticated campaign can reach the price of up to $100,000.
5. Honda EvoTrack Mobile Game
To promote the new Honda Civic 2022, carmaker Honda opted for a mobile and desktop browser game called Honda EvoTrack.
The game was developed by Wave, a digital fan engagement agency, in partnership with Red Bull Racing Honda.
Through the game, players can virtually experience the Honda Civic 2022. Moreover, they can try out the Honda RB16B Formula One car, and other Honda models.
Players get to compete for the opportunity to win a digital voucher, which they can exchange for a Honda and Red Bull Racing official licensed merchandise.
Honda made the game free to play on both mobile and desktop devices.
The challenge of the game is to complete as many laps as possible without missing turns or hitting obstacles. The further you get, the higher your score is.
Driving a Honda Lineup to Mobile Gamers
Phil Hruska, Media Department Head at American Honda Motor Co., stated that launching the Honda EvoTrack mobile game had brought entertainment and friendly competition to their customers.
Since the game launched on October 19th, 2021, the four–week contest is still ongoing. We have yet to see how this campaign will play out, but, for now, it is one of the better mobile marketing examples.
Honda chose to promote their game on various social media outlets, such as their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages. On Twitter, users shared their leaderboard scores:
But the campaign should be successful since Honda shared they had already had a long history in the gaming industry.
Throughout the last decade, Honda Civic was a part of the Forza franchise, Guitar Hero, and even Hearthstone Team Brawl.
Furthermore, in 2019 Honda expanded its gaming presence to eSports and became an exclusive automotive partner and official automaker of Team Liquid in the Riot Games’ League of Legends Championship Series.
Additionally, Honda has a gaming channel on Twitch, where they aim to catch the younger generation’s attention through eSports. On Twitch, the company has almost 6,000 followers.
6. 7-Eleven and Zappar — Fall Football
7-Eleven and Zappar’s partnership is not a new thing — their collaboration started in 2018.
However, their 2020 Fall Football campaign stands out. The goal of this campaign was to drive interest towards 7–Eleven’s partner’s products via engaging experiences.
Additionally, the campaign’s goal was to drive sales in-store via app users utilizing their 7Rewards points.
The AR portion of the campaign was done by Zappar, who has more than ten years of experience in the field.
Fall Football is one of the excellent mobile marketing examples because it demonstrated how important it is to choose the right time to launch your campaign.
It was launched at a perfect time to celebrate the start of the NFL’s sporting season.
The campaign featured a virtual avatar of a beloved sports celebrity Dak Prescott, a 7-Eleven brand ambassador, and a Dallas Cowboys quarterback.
This virtual avatar guided the users throughout the entire AR experience. As a part of the AR experience, players could kick footballs through goalposts placed in the real world.
Moreover, the AR included a trick shot game featuring Prescott, an opportunity to take a selfie with the virtual avatar, and many more mini features.
Did People Fall for Fall Football?
According to 7-Eleven, the strategy was to capitalize on a major social event in order to draw users’ attention to their app. 7–Eleven’s campaign was a success.
Over the course of six months, the app has received over 2.7 million scans. According to 7–Eleven, users spent more than two minutes on average in the app.
Furthermore, over 600,000 videos and photos were shared through the app’s selfie-taking feature.
Finally, the campaign’s goal was to get people to use the 7Rewards app. And people did make use of it. During that time, more than 117 million 7Rewards points were earned.
7–Eleven stated that the mini-games and the AR experience helped form a tighter bond with customers and created a positive relationship with them that can last for years.
Final Thoughts on Mobile Marketing Examples
Marketing innovations are always fascinating to observe and be inspired by. Hopefully, these mobile marketing examples will help you determine how to create your own unique campaign.
If you want to explore even more mobile marketing ideas, examples, tips, and tricks, check out our Blog!
About Udonis
Since 2018 until today, Udonis Inc. has acquired over 150 million users for mobile apps & games. We’re recognized as a leading mobile marketing agency by 5 major marketing review firms. We helped over 20 mobile apps & games reach the top charts. Want to know how we make it look so effortless? Meet us to find out!
