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Tylenol, Splenda, Honey Bunches of Oats test mobile advertising

Mobile ad network AdMob unveiled the results of one-day mobile advertising test campaigns it ran for Tylenol, Splenda and Post Cereals' Honey Bunches of Oats.

According to Dynamic Logic and Insight Express, mobile campaign deltas significantly outperform online campaign deltas across all metrics, including unaided awareness, aided awareness, ad awareness, message association and purchase intent. These one-day test campaigns are AdMob's way of proving that to brands that haven't tried mobile marketing yet.

"All three brands took the different goals of their online campaigns and transferred them to mobile, and we wanted to show that it's not that tough," said Tony Nethercutt, vice president of sales for AdMob, San Mateo, CA.

"There are people that are a little bit hesitant to try mobile, but our experience has been that if we show people there's a way to dip their toe in the water, they can get the people above them interested in doing mobile," he said.

"These test campaigns were designed to show them how their brand in a simple way could use mobile by taking baby steps like ads on a mobile Web site driving to a mobile landing page and looking at performance."

Mr. Nethercutt also discussed the Tylenol, Splenda and Post Cereals' Honey Bunches of Oats examples at last week's digiday: Mobile show in New York.

All three test campaigns included iPhone banner ads on sites such as Movietickets.com and Accuweather.com and within applications such as CBS Sports Mobile. Consumers could touch each ad to expand it on top of content they were viewing.

AdMob provided creative consultation, mobile-specific asset creation and $1,500 worth of ads to each brand, as well as comprehensive reporting.

While the click-through rate for the three test campaigns was a bit lower than the CTR AdMob typically sees -- it generally ranges from 0.5 to 1 percent for text and 1 percent to 1.5 percent on banners -- the results were good, Mr. Nethercutt said.

AdMob typically suggests that advertisers run a combination of both CPM banner ads and CPC text ads. When the impressions of both types of ads are combined and divided into the total cost of the buy, the resulting effective eCPM is often well below $5.

McNeil-PPC Inc.'s Tylenol wanted to take its online campaign, powered by Interpublic Group ad agency Deutsch, and see if it could mirror it on mobile with expandable iPhone banner ads, text ads and a mobile landing page with free tips to avoid headaches and information about Tylenol Rapid Release Gels.

The test campaign drove 5,000 consumers to Tylenol's mobile site and achieved 630,000 impressions. The overall eCPM was $2.37, while the overall cost per visitor was 30 cents, AdMob claimed.

Splenda extended its online campaign powered by J3 to mobile with iPhone ads and WAP banners on select sites.

Splenda's call-to-action was "Shop today [March 10] and receive 30% off plus free shipping!" Consumers were able to buy Splenda using their handset.

The one-day test campaign drove 4,500 consumers to Splenda's mobile site and achieved 714,000 impressions. The overall eCPM was $2.10, while the cost per visitor was 33 cents, it was claimed.

Post's Honey Bunches of Oats extended its online "Find Your Flavor" campaign, powered by WPP Group ad agency Ogilvy & Mather, to mobile. The goal was to raise awareness about the different varieties of the cereal brand.

The mobile campaign also included WAP banners, iPhone banners and a mobile landing page that featured video and information about each of the seven flavors.

The one-day test campaign drove 4,600 consumers to the mobile site, generated more than 200 video views and achieved 600,000 impressions. The overall eCPM was $2.45, while the overall cost per visitor was 32 cents, AdMob claimed.

"Brands realize, ?Wow, this isn't that much different from online, and we go through many of the same steps,' so the test campaigns are a tangible way of showing that, literally in one day, you can run a campaign and get results back," Mr. Nethercutt said.

"We encourage people to listen, learn and apply lessons to their business and come to us and say ?We'd like to try that,'" he said. "We're increasing confidence within the agency and advertising communities, because they see that mobile can be an extension of online campaigns.

"We give them proof that mobile Web advertising and messaging acts and behaves much like its online brethren and make people who haven't experienced it yet realize that mobile isn't all that different from online."