Target Advertises Aguilera Exclusive on Mobile Blogs
Retailer Target has begun promoting its exclusive new CD from singer Christina Aguilera, “Keeps Getting’ Better,” on a new mobile blog Web portal from Snakk Media.
The new mobile channel, named www.310.tv for the Los Angeles area code, launched a beta version today with a focus on pop-culture blog content from the worlds of fashion, music, movies, TV, gaming and celebrity gossip.
The media company has signed exclusive deals with 100 widely read blogs such as GlossLip.com and BlogCritics.com. Snakk Media’s tech platform takes the content from those blogs and translates it into a format that can be optimized for reading on any one of 9,000 different U.S. handset types, including the iPhone and the new Blackberry models. The process occurs almost in real time, according to Derek Wiggins, director of mobile sales for Los Angeles-based Snakk.
“About six to eight months ago we realized that we couldn’t get to the blogs we wanted over our mobile phones because of formatting problems,” he said. “So we sat down to figure out how to physically format our favorite blogs for mobile devices. After we’d lined up 60 or 70 blog partners, we realized that we’d created a mobile entertainment portal. And since when the bloggers updated their blogs, the mobile content was updated as well, we had a living, breathing mobile blog network.”
They also saw that that network could have marketing appeal to advertisers trying to reach the demographics that rely heavily on their mobile phones for news and content, not just communication services.
Target is the first advertiser on the newly-launched 310.tv mobile network, purchasing a site sponsorship, run of site campaign and top and bottom banner ads. The two-week campaign will promote the Target-specific Aguilera CD, “Keeps Getting’ Better: A Decade of Hits”.
Target’s current TV ads also promote the album, featuring Aguilera as a Target-themed superhero.
Wiggins says the 310.tv site and other mobile blog portals that Snakk Media expects to launch will offer not only display ads but integrated marketing through both the bloggers’ Web sites and any live events they may take part in, such as concerts or conferences.
