September 7, 2010

Molson, MyThum up for new IAB mobile award

"Hockey House" program recognized

At Advertising Week in New York City this September, Molson Coors Canada and its mobile agency of record MyThum Interactive will compete with some of the world’s leading marketers and agencies for one of the top global awards in interactive marketing.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has announced the finalists in the sixth annual MIXX Awards, which recognize groundbreaking creativity and impact in interactive advertising from around the world. Molson Coors and MyThum Interactive are among the finalists in the “Mobile Platforms and Apps - Campaign” category for the innovative “Molson Canadian Hockey House” program.

During the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, Molson Canadian Hockey Houses across Canada offered live games, nightly entertainment, hockey legends and heroes. To bring Canadians together, increase market share with an international audience, and drive traffic to these hockey havens, Molson Canadian and MyThum Interactive created a location-based mobile web destination to help fans make it to their closest Hockey House. Texting BEERME to the mobile short code 665766 or by using sponsored WiFi access at select locations, consumers were taken to the Hockey House mobile page to find the closest location and receive text message alerts when Canada won gold.

Molson Coors was the first marketer in Canada to leverage network location based services which, unlike location-aware services for smartphones, have no handset restrictions. This allowed the brand 100% device reach and turn-by-turn directions to the widest range of consumers.

The Molson Canadian Hockey House became Canada’s home-away-from-home for watching the Games, generating tremendous publicity and coverage. Hundreds of thousands of existing mobile Insiders were given a chance to get front of the line access. More than 40% of mobile Insiders responded within minutes to the offer when the average response rate is 15% to general mobile offers, which helped to kick off awareness around the campaign. 70% of consumers who were prompted to share their location to get directions chose to do so. While consumers were on the mobile website, over 15% of consumers decided to join the mobile Insider program to receive future offers from Molson Canadian.

The overall Hockey House campaign helped drive 60% awareness of the Olympic sponsorship, increase purchase intent by 189% and willingness to pay more by 100%.

Molson Coors Canada has embraced mobile as a core component of its relationship marketing activities since 2006. “Molson Coors was by far the first leading brand to successfully make the transition from tactics to strategy when it comes to leveraging the mobile channel,” says Michael Carter, President and CEO of MyThum Interactive. “They continue to push the envelope with the integration of mobile into every facet of their multi-platform, multi-channel marketing strategy. It’s exciting when you get the opportunity to collaborate with such a forward thinking company to help shape the landscape of an industry.”

The winners of the 2010 MIXX Awards will be revealed at a gala dinner on September 28, during Advertising Week in New York City.