STA Travel, a global travel specialist for students and young people, is turning to mobile advertising to promote flights to its key global destinations.

Working mobile ad network AdMob, STA Travel rolled out an iPhone-focused advertising campaign to engage its target audience of 18-to-30-year-olds and drive calls to its contact center. Currently focused on British consumers, STA Travel may extend the mobile advertising campaign to other territories in the future, including South Africa and Scandinavia.

?STA Travel set out to engage its key audience of students, graduates, and young professionals and boost calls to its travel center with a mobile advertising campaign promoting flights to key global destinations,? said Thomas Schulz, London-based managing director of EMEA at AdMob.

?Working with AdMob enabled STA Travel to reach an on-the-go demographic with an easy and direct call-to-action,? he said.

STA Travel is a global travel specialist with 30 years of experience advising young people on holidays and adventures abroad.

The company offers a range of flights, accommodations, tours and expeditions in 90 countries and sends more than 6 million passengers away each year. STA Travel has 400-plus branches worldwide.

AdMob claims that it serves more than 7.1 billion mobile banner and text ads per month across a range of mobile Web sites and applications. AdMob operates in more than 160 countries and territories worldwide.

AdMob?s advertiser and publisher partners include Adidas, CBS News, Gap, Lonely Planet, MovieTickets.com, MySpace, P&G, Tapulous and Universal Pictures.

Google Inc. recently signed a game-changing agreement to acquire mobile ad network AdMob for $750 million in stock in a move that validates mobile advertising as an effective marketing medium (see story).

The STA campaign launched before the acquisition was announced.

Travel and mobile: a perfect match
Following successful test campaigns in July and August this year, resulting in more than 1,000 calls to its contact centre, STA Travel has deployed a combination of cost-per-click text and tile ads across AdMob?s network of mobile Web sites and iPhone applications.

The ads publicise flights to New York, Bangkok, Sydney, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Auckland and the click-to-call function directs consumers straight through to a dedicated contact-center number so that they can book flights.

Earlier this year, STA Travel underwent a multi-million-dollar rebranding in which digital communication played a key role.

To continue attracting its core market of students and expand its appeal to graduates and young professionals, STA Travel?s redesigned Web site includes a interactive features and social networking tools such as travel blogs and podcasts.

Mobile advertising presented the company with another digital channel through which it could communicate with its target demographic.

?The campaign targets British consumers and STA Travel's CPC text and tile ads ran across AdMob?s entire network of mobile Web sites and iPhone applications,? Mr. Schulz said. ?The ads publicized flights to a number of international destinations and used AdMob?s click-to-call function to connect consumers directly to a call center to book a flight.?