Universal Studios Home Entertainment launched a multichannel marketing campaign this week, including a commerce-enabled mobile banner ad buy, to promote the DVD release of Quentin Tarantino’s film Inglorious Basterds.
The effort, launched December 10, will run through the end of the year. Although the DVD is not available until December 15, consumers can purchase preorders for the first five days.
For the first time, Universal is testing rich media-enabled mobile banner ads, which were designed by marketing firm Adgregate Markets. The ads are running across the Greystripe mobile advertising network, which is primarily a network that serves ads on smartphones, and usually in applications. The ad calls consumers to purchase the DVD with credit cards directly from the ad.
Adgregate recently expanded the tool to support m-commerce-enabled banner ads, as well as e-commerce-enabled banners.
“Universal has a multichannel strategy on the marketing side, and they have been more aggressive with mobile this year,” said Henry Wong, CEO of Adgregate Markets. “The idea with this campaign is that if this works well to drive purchases, then they will add this to their overarching marketing program.”
This mobile purchasing option comes as more consumers are using their mobile phones for shopping. One in five consumers plans to use a mobile phone for holiday purchases, according to Deloitte’s 24th annual holiday survey of retail spending and trends, published in October.
“This campaign combines the point of discovery with the point of purchase,” said Wong. “This works well for a DVD release because click-through rates are very high in the entertainment categories on mobile phones.”
Universal did not return calls seeking comment.
