With the tag line “So Many Ways to Play,” LEGO’s popular DUPLO Games are exciting play activities aimed at children ages 18 months through 5 years. The bricks and games, first introduced in 1969, have been developed to help and support children in discovering shapes, sizes, colors, and more. They range from DUPLO bricks, or building blocks, to engaging game sets based on characters and themes as diverse as Winnie the Pooh, police & fire, farm, castle, and zoo.  

Capitalizing on mobile popularity

When LEGO sought to increase awareness and sales of the DUPLO bricks and sets, marketers at the company wanted to take a new tack at reaching parents with young children, by extending the reach of their digital advertising to the mobile audience. They also sought to create a more immersive, interactive experience to draw in viewers using both traditional and interactive video – all delivered on any mobile screen via Google’s Mobile Ads network. “We saw mobile video advertising as an untapped opportunity and one of the best ways to reach users across mobile platforms,” says Ms. Tan Lee Hoon, Managing Director, LEGO Singapore Pte Ltd.

Ms. Tan and her team launched a cost-per-click mobile banner ad campaign through AdMob. Users who clicked on the banner were taken to a mobile-optimized landing page where they could click to watch the video. The LEGO marketing team also mobilized a CPM-focused campaign using banner ads and interactive and pre-roll video ad units.

 

Fully immersive ads that get noticed

LEGO saw a 1% click-through rate on the banners taking users to the mobile-optimized page and a 1.3% click-through rate on the banner ads leading viewers to the interactive video. User engagement on the interactive video ad units was exceptional. In fact, 10.65% of users clicked on the “Learn More” button to obtain more information and spent an average of 23 seconds watching the 30 second video.  

Posted by Christian Cadeo, Head of Mobile, Southeast Asia

Well known brands in Australia have been making a full leap into mobile marketing in 2011, with a variety of campaign strategies including app download promotion, video, click to call functionality & more. We thought we’d share a highlight reel of some of the most interesting campaigns so far this year:

And here’s a quick description of each campaign:

• Telstra: Used in-app banners to click through to a mobile optimised video, detailing their home media offerings.
• Disney: Also used click-to-video functionality to promote the DVD release of the hit movie, Tron.
• Qantas: Used in-app banners to direct users to their new, mobile optimised, boarding pass facilities.
• Vodafone: promoted their double minutes for free campaign, through in-app banners, and a mobile website.
• Domino’s: promoted their new mobile ordering functionality, with in-app banners
• Lexus: gained consumer engagement by directing users to the app download of their new Lexus CT City Challenge iPhone game.
• eBay: Prompted users to experience mobile commerce through the download of their mobile app.
• MLC: Prompted users to click to call to book a free 30 minute consultation.

Stay tuned, this is just the start, and there’s much more to come in 2011.


Posted by Mike Kofi Okyere, Google Mobile Ads, Australia

Updated report links 8/10/11

Today our Global Perspectives series focuses on the extraordinary growth of smartphone usage in the UK mobile marketplace and what this tells us about the current state of mobile advertising.  At our recent Think Mobile event in London we shared some of the findings from our research into the mobile market.  Here for the first time we share the in-depth results, including a video and report as well as the latest AdMob data on the UK.  

AdMob activity shows UK mobile market booming
The AdMob network, that includes over 89,000 websites and apps worldwide, provides insight into the current trends on UK mobile usage. We see that over the past year the uptake of smartphones in the UK has been quite staggering. According to figures from ComScore, Smartphone ownership was up 58% year-on-year to 36% of the UK. With the AdMob network recording over 100 million ad requests a day and over 3 billion ad requests each month, the UK display ads market is clearly in the rudest of health.

So what are people in the UK using their smartphones for?
Our research into uk consumers’ mobile activities shows that many are using their smartphones to discover  information with, for example, 76% having browsed the internet; 52% in the last week.  They’re also in the habit of using their smartphones at the same time that they’re using other media, including TV:  53% of people in the UK use their smartphone while also watching TV programmes.  

Purchase driven shoppers 

45% of UK smartphone owners use it to help with shopping, 28% use them to look for inspiration while shopping and 15% use a phone to evaluate products while shopping. Smartphone research frequently leads to sales either on the phone, in-store or via desktop PC as the chart below shows.

Local information seekers
UK smartphone users are most interested in what’s in their our own backyards; 81% of the time they’re looking for local information when they search, while 80% have reached out to a local business after a search on their phone with a third of these going on to purchase.

Reaching the mobile user
Our research shows that 87% of people notice mobile ads and 28% of people have taken action after seeing a mobile ad. Of those, 16% make a purchase in a shop, 20% buy on a computer and 9% complete a transaction via mobile phone.

What next?
When it comes to mobile advertising and commerce, it seems that there’s still plenty of room for growth and development.  Our research found that 83% of top advertisers in Britain don’t have a mobile-optimised site. Clearly, it’s still not too late to be early in mobile.  

Keen to learn more about the state of mobile in the UK? Watch our new video on the mobile movement in the UK here, download the report here  or if you missed our Think Mobile UK event,  check out Ian Carrington of Google presenting some of the research highlights here.

Posted by Matt Brocklehurst, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads UK

If you've taken the time to build a site designed specifically for mobile, we want to hear from you!
 
At Google, we believe that building a mobile-ready site is critical for businesses of all sizes and we’re looking for some great examples.  We’d love to hear about what you’ve done, how you did it, and the success you‘ve seen. Please fill out this form and tell us about your mobile site.  
 
We’ll spotlight some of the best submissions in case studies. If selected, you can tout your success and spread the word about your truly great mobile site experience.
 
Think you’ve got what it takes? We hope so!  Here’s the kind of info we’re looking for about your successful mobile site:

• Your strategy for success (simple layout? prioritized content?)
• What you learned along the way (experiments? trial and error?)
• Metrics that show how far you’ve come (numbers tell the tale!)
• Why your mobile site works and what advice you have for others

If you’ve got a mobile site success story to share, fill out this form to tell us about it and you may be featured by Google for being an innovator in the mobile space.   
 
If you’re still working toward mobilizing your site, we’ve got the resources to help you get from here to there (and everywhere that mobile goes). Use our Mobile Site Builder to build your site, or learn from our Mobile Website Best Practices.
 
Posted by Adam Compain, Mobile Specialist, Mobile Ads

Smartphone penetration link updated 8/9/11.

This is the first in a series of posts capturing insights from the Think Mobile event in London.
 
Google’s recent Think Mobile event in London hosted a capacity crowd of over 400 delegates, with a further 9,500-plus viewers streaming it live on desktop and mobiles.  This is the first in a series of four blog posts where we’ll summarise key points and include video footage from the thought leaders who presented.  For a sneak preview, check out the three-minute summary from Google UK MD Matt Brittin here that finished the day on a real high.  

Ian Carrington of Google took the prize for sharing “killer stats” at Think Mobile UK as he highlighted data on just how fast the mobile market is developing:

• In 2010 there were 500 million people connected to the mobile web, today there are around a billion.
• In the middle of last year, Wall Street tech futurist Mary Meeker predicted that smartphone sales would overtake PC sales by the end of 2012. That in fact already happened in Q4 2010 – fully two years earlier than expected.
• UK smartphone penetration in 2010 was 24%; in 2011 it has soared to 36%

Ian also announced some of the results of Google’s research (we’ll soon be sharing the full report with you on this blog)  in the UK with notable stats including 44% of us go to bed with our phones within arm’s reach, 65% of us use our smartphones to kill time commuting and 91% of us use our smartphones during downtime in the workplace.



Smartphone usage is clearly booming in the UK.  However, only 17% of advertisers today have a mobile optimised site. “This is the single largest barrier between you and the mobile user,” Ian announced, adding “it’s time for a little less conversation and a little more action.”:

Step one: develop and integrate your mobile strategy Start off by finding out what your objectives are. “Is it about downloads? Is it about customer acquisition? What are you trying to achieve? Once you’ve defined that, integrate it into all your other marketing activities”

Step two: build your mobile destination This could be a website or an iPhone or Android app. To show just how much this step is worthy of your investment, Ian pointed to Ebay. “They’re having a sale on a mobile device every single second, and they’re doing over $2bn worth of revenue in a year on mobile. In actual fact, they sell three to four Ferraris per month via a mobile phone!” he said.

Step three: connect with your users “People are looking at your business through a mobile lens,” he continued. “Are you optimising your advertising campaign? Have you separated out your AdWord campaigns to target desktop customers in a different way with different bidding strategies to your mobile customers?” If you’ve answered “no” then it’s time to consider making these changes.

Step four: mobilise your business with data “Be creative with the data you’ve got,” Ian advised. “You’ve got all this data from your AdWords and Google Analytics accounts on what people are doing today with your business on a mobile phone. Very, very few people are actually looking at that data – so start looking at it and understand the insights it’s giving you.” These valuable details can directly inform step one – your strategy.

Get more “killer stats” and insights by watching Ian’s talk here and look out for three more blogs on the key takeaways from Think Mobile UK.  

Posted by Matt Brocklehurst, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads UK

Mobile has finally delivered on its promise and it’s transforming our lives in almost every way, connecting our physical and digital worlds. Smartphones are driving an explosion of the mobile web. Check out the video below and learn about five trends we’re seeing in mobile. As marketers, you’ll need to take action, so stay with us through the end for some key steps to get started on mobile today.

Why is going mobile important?

1. 85% of mobile devices will be web enabled by next year.
2. Mobile search has grown 4x in the past year.
3. 1 in 3 mobile searches have local intent.
4. 30% of restaurant searches are from mobile devices.

It’s time to use mobile to your advantage. And it’s not too late to be early.
 
Hungry for more data? Check out  our new mobile insights page.
 
Posted by Suzanne Mumford, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Updated links added 7/29/11

We’re excited about the growth we’ve seen in tablet usage over the past year, and we’re continuing to improve the user and advertiser experience on tablets with full internet browsers. Today we announced the launch of a refreshed Google Search for tablet users. Now tablet users can experience an optimized version of Google Search designed to maximize the screen real estate of a tablet and be easy to navigate via touch.  
 
In turn, we’ve updated the look and feel of search ads on tablets to customize the experience for tablet users. Aside from the visual changes, the number of ads which show on Google Search will now be dependent on the orientation of a tablet:

• If you enter in a search query when the tablet is in landscape mode, there will be a maximum of two top ads above the search results.
• If your search query occurs when the tablet is held in portrait mode, there will be a maximum of three ads above the search results.
• Similarly to high end mobile devices, there will also be a maximum of three ads at the bottom of search results regardless of tablet orientation. 

All campaigns targeting tablet devices will show on this new tablet-optimized search experience. However, here are some ways in which you can make use of AdWords account features to review and manage tablet ad performance:  

• Earlier this month we introduced the ability to target tablet devices in Campaign Settings, offering greater control over specific tablet device types and the ability to target specific types of tablet users.
• Just as you can segment by Search or Display network traffic, you can now segment by the type of device in your Campaign reports to view traffic and conversions from ‘Tablets with full browsers’.

We hope that this updated tablet search experience will help users continue to find the most relevant information, and advertisers to see improved performance on tablet campaigns. We’re excited for the ways in which tablet devices will help businesses and consumers connect with each other. Learn more about targeting tablet devices here.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Product Manager, Mobile Ads