Mobile on Demand goes national

According to Dan Reitzik, everyone's going digital. The president of the Vancouver-based online and wireless community Digital Youth, announced that the company's Mobile on Demand program is expanding to five markets, and as a result of the expansion, they're busy searching for sponsors. The initiative, a partnership with CanWest Media Works, offers brands a bundled mobile and print buy. The weekly full-colour, full-page 'mobile marketing destination' in Friday editions of CanWest print properties in the Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Montreal markets will contain content such as mobile stories (called 'Text in the City'), ads and contests. The biggest draw? Ringtones provided by exclusive category sponsor, Universal Music.

Mobile on Demand initially ran as a test in CanWest's Vancouver Province last spring. In some weeks, text-ins fluctuated between 400-5,000, depending on content and contests offered that week. Because of that continuing success, the 16-week national program will be offered in the Vancouver Province, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen and Montreal Gazette beginning November 18. Digital Advertising Network (DAN), a Digital Youth partner, will support the promo through its network of in-mall screens. DAN Media will also be selling Universal ring tones.
By Pia Musngi
October 18, 2005

According to Dan Reitzik, everyone’s going digital. The president of the Vancouver-based online and wireless community Digital Youth, announced that the company’s Mobile on Demand program is expanding to five markets, and as a result of the expansion, they’re busy searching for sponsors. The initiative, a partnership with CanWest Media Works, offers brands a bundled mobile and print buy. The weekly full-colour, full-page ‘mobile marketing destination’ in Friday editions of CanWest print properties in the Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Montreal markets will contain content such as mobile stories (called ‘Text in the City’), ads and contests. The biggest draw? Ringtones provided by exclusive category sponsor, Universal Music.

Mobile on Demand initially ran as a test in CanWest’s Vancouver Province last spring. In some weeks, text-ins fluctuated between 400-5,000, depending on content and contests offered that week. Because of that continuing success, the 16-week national program will be offered in the Vancouver Province, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen and Montreal Gazette beginning November 18. Digital Advertising Network (DAN), a Digital Youth partner, will support the promo through its network of in-mall screens. DAN Media will also be selling Universal ring tones.

Just started for Mobile On Demand is the New Music Tuesday Club. Users text their preferred genre to a short code and every week, an SMS will be sent about a newly-launched Universal music CD in that genre. Reitzik says this feature will be tied to regional music retailers.

‘People want value-added info with time sensitive offers. It’s all about immediacy,’ says Reitzik. At first the program, which started two weeks ago, is being used to create a database of users. Eventually, that database will be used to drive traffic to stores with incentives such as m-coupons or in-store artist signings.

Digital Youth is also in negotiations with a travel company as part of the national launch. The idea is to sign a travel sponsor to notify users about last minute travel deals. Reitzik says the company is also shopping for a video rental company to service movie fans for the upcoming New Movie Tuesday Club.

‘This is so users can get the news about when the latest DVD comes out. We’re all about building interested user groups. They understand that they’re being marketed to and it’s all permission-based. We want to create destinations in media for people to find anything and everything mobile such as content and contests. And this works best for aggregators.’

Depending on the size of the ads within Mobile on Demand the buy costs between $800 and $3000 per week per market. Basic mobile campaigns are included in the media cost.

The company hopes to turn the full-page mobile destination into a pull-out section, eventually, he says. Mobile on Demand targets 25 to 35 year-olds and as of December 2004, the network member count was at 28,000.

With files from Lisa D’Innocenzo.