Agency Starts Mobile Division; Radisson Tests First

PinPoint Interactive Media, a full-service interactive ad agency in Coral Springs, FL, is the latest agency to launch a mobile division, the company will announce today.

PinPoint, which works with advertisers in hospitality, technology, investments and entertainment, joins interactive agency iCrossing, Phoenix, and others starting mobile marketing divisions and services in recent months.

PinPoint added mobile marketing "at the request and urging of our customers," company president Adam Kaufman said. "It's an always-have, always-on device ... and a marketing format that is only pull."

The PinPoint Mobile division offers a proprietary SMS text messaging application for confirming reservations, appointments and other timely information. It also offers development of mobile banner ads and mobile Web sites along with m-commerce and store locator solutions.

Carlson Companies, Minneapolis, is one of PinPoint's first customers to test mobile advertising with a recent Radisson Hotels & Resorts campaign on USAToday.com, Info.com and other sites. In the six-week test, individuals who visited the sites on their wireless devices saw a Radisson mobile banner ad at the top of the window. If they clicked on the ad, they were taken to a page that explained the Radisson offer.

Click-through and conversion rates were well above the industry average for Internet ad campaigns, Mr. Kaufman said.

Mobile marketing lends itself to the travel sector, including car rental companies and hotels, because "as you travel, the one thing you have is your phone," he said. Yet mobile advertising is "really appropriate for any type of company trying to give ongoing messaging to customers."