HOOKED ON MOBILE

Click-to-Call or CTC is a model that started first on the internet and then evolved into a more literal use of its name, meaning the user clicks to make a call. While browsing the net on your mobile phone you can see how phone numbers are higlighted (like links), upon clicking the number will be automatically dialed. A similar use of CTC was used by google in the google maps, but was later on discontinued for whatever reason (no real explanation was given).

Proving that advertising is more about engaging people than click-through rates, the New york agency Ringleader developed an ad campaign using Click-to-Call to create some buzz for the horror film “The Signal“. The most notorious part of this film is a mysterius transmission sound that turns people into serial killers.  The campaign gave the option of clicking on a number to listen the distinctive horrific sound (of course the campaign was mixed with other elements like video and a mobile website to create the total experience).

Another good showcase for this technology was seen in the campaign developed for Nickelodeon’s go, Diego, go presentation at Rose Garden auditorium in Portland last year. The Click-to-Call was used in combination with a promotional code to receive a 3$ discount to see the show.

The Click-to-Call apps

Several apps are now dedicated exclusively to provide you with a large database of telephone numbers for you to call. Apps such as the Yellow Pages, German Telefonbuch, White Pages, Qype… available not only for the iPhone, but also for other platforms like the Blackberry, Android and hopefully the anticipated Palm Pre (though too early to say).

The most challenging aspect of Click-to-Call is not how many clicks you get or even how many calls, but how many of these calls will convert into actual sales. To measure this efficiently is at the moment is not very clear and from what I understood very expensive to correlate.  According to Richard Rosen – “Call measurement requires an investment in dedicated phone numbers and some type of usage charge in order to prove ROI to an advertiser. Pay per call requires an entrepreneurial investment by providers in the phone lines in hopes of generating a premium “per call” fee to recoup those costs”. Richard Rosen is the owner of the consulting firm Calling Strategies which specializes among other things in Call Tracking.

In the next post we’ll be talking about the use of video as an advertising tool on mobile devices.