Johannesburg, 23 January 2010. Ackermans has become the first South African retailer to advertise on the local mobile advertising network. It partnered with AdMob and Yonder Media to drive awareness of its Birthday, resulting in Ackermans management gaining insight into their client base.

While brand managers are starting to realize the full potential of mobile advertising in South Africa, Ackermans became the first South African retailer to make use of this medium recently when it utilized mobile advertising as one of the elements in its birthday campaign. In choosing the AdMob network to ensure targeted coverage, the campaign turned up results that were invaluable to the retailer, and resulted in what can best be described as an eye opener for management at the company.

The success of the campaign has shown that mobile campaigns are extremely effective across all market segments, echoing what has been occurring internationally. “With mobile connectivity outstripping fixed line internet in South Africa, this was the perfect vehicle for Ackermans to attract its target audience to its mobi site” says Brett St. Clair, country manager AdMob South Africa.

Ackermans ran a ‘run of network’ campaign across the whole of South Africa. Once this identified which consumers engaged better with the promotion, additional optimization was done by Yonder Media in order to increase the performance of the campaign. “The objective was met in that the campaign tracked handset usage which enabled Ackermans to see what type of handset responded favourably. This technology resulted in a better understanding of the consumer demographic”, says Fiona Smit of Yonder Media.

Admob will soon release some handset demographic research (which will include age, LSM and gender) on the SA market. This will enable marketers to focus more specifically on the targeted demographic and get a better understanding of consumers visiting their mobi sites. This will be an invaluable tool for all marketers when considering what elements to include in their next marketing drive.

Mobile advertising is finally being seen as a successful element in getting the message out there. Karin Mellors, Brand Manager for Ackermans confirmed this when she said of the campaign, “Ackermans started dabbling with mobile to supplement reach on advertising campaigns. This relatively ‘foreign’ medium was initially daunting. The results were unbelievable. We approached each campaign differently so that it would be a test and learning curve for us. Teaming up with Yonder Media who are such enthusiastic partners and using Admob has been a great journey for us”

Mobile internet marketing is the fastest growing mobile medium. Globally, AdMob have seen a trend where brands are starting to dominate spend, exceeding that of traditional content providers. St Clair notes “We are now seeing this happen in South Africa too, especially once brands have run trial campaigns and see the remarkable benefits – reach, interaction and measurability.”