Even Betty Crocker is using the iPhone.
As marketers seek to strike a chord with time-pressed consumers, they've begun to turn to mobile devices.
Packaged goods giant General Mills (NYSE:GIS - News) dialed up its venerable food maven, Ms. Crocker, for its very first mobile marketing program. In February, the company launched the Betty Crocker mobile cookbook, a free application for Apple's (NasdaqGS:AAPL - News) popular iPhone.
The application contains more than 4,000 recipes, the same ones available at bettycrocker.com. General Mills hopes the application sends iPhone users to its Betty Crocker and other Web sites, sparking more purchases of its products.
"We wanted to extend the value of that Web site to mobile devices," said Mike Bettison, Web site manager for General Mills. "And we wanted to extend the value of that Web site to mobile devices, knowing that people increasingly use their mobile devices to help organize their meal planning."
With its mobile cookbook iPhone application, General Mills aims to simplify the lives of consumers with trusted and timely information when and where they need it.
General Mills has tracked the widespread adoption of smart phones such as the iPhone and Research In Motion's (NasdaqGS:RIMM - News) BlackBerry, noting how they're being used for meal planning, Bettison says.
"Some of our early research suggested that Wi-Fi (for wireless Internet access) is becoming increasingly available in grocery stores," he said. "If our consumers are using the Internet and Wi-Fi at the point 15f purchase, it's in our best interest to be of specific interest to them at that time."
Bettison wouldn't reveal the number of downloads for the Betty Crocker recipe app, but he says General Mills is pleased with the response. He says the app has received many good reviews from users, blogs and the press.
"We're encouraged by its relative high standing within the iTunes store," he said. "We're encouraged by the comments in the (iTunes) store about the app. The most successful we can be is when we've made someone's life easier around meal planning."
As of early Tuesday, the Betty Crocker app ranked as the 20th most-downloaded free lifestyles application at the iTunes App Store.
The Internet's interactivity is having an impact. Bettison says a number of iPhone users have asked for more basic recipes, such as French toast, and have also asked General Mills to create recipe categories.
General Mills will be implementing those and other suggestions, Bettison says.
"And we're excited about the opportunity to move forward on other mobile devices," he said, without revealing any specific plans.
Companies are looking to mobile marketing to make a deeper connection with consumers because people carry iPhones and other devices with them all the time, says Liza Post, vice president for digital strategy at MRM Worldwide, a digital ad and marketing agency. The unit of ad firm McCann Worldgroup helped General Mills develop the Betty Crocker recipe application.
The app lets users do keyword searches for recipes and to search via ingredients. Each recipe has a list of ingredients and how to use them along with a picture of the dish and a user rating. Users can save their favorite recipes to the iPhone for quick and easy reference.
To get the word out about the application, General Mills has run banner ads on mobile Web sites such as elle.com and chow.com.
But its overall approach was what Post calls "pull marketing," in which customers seek out the application without General Mills sending them a message.
In mobile, marketing is very much permission based, Post says. "You don't spam out messages," she said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment