Coca-Cola seeks mobile agency in SMS offensive

by Gareth Jones, Marketing 25-Sep-07, 08:15

LONDON - Coca-Cola is seeking a mobile marketing agency as part of its plans to increase its commitment to global SMS on-pack promotions and branding campaigns.

The soft-drinks firm is co-ordinating the search from its Atlanta headquarters, amid plans to boost mobile activity in key international territories including Europe, the US, South America and Asia.

Coca-Cola works with a handful of mobile specialists, including AKQA Mobile, Marvellous and Sponge. However, it is keen to expand the roster with the appointment of at least one more agency.

Earlier this year, the company announced its intention to put mobile at the centre of plans to boost consumer loyalty to its Sprite brand, with the launch of The Yard, a wireless social network aimed at 13- to 25-year-olds.

The launch is being overseen by Marvellous, which was acquired by Aegis last year. Marvellous is understood to be pitching for the global Coca-Cola brief alongside a number of other UK mobile marketing specialists.

Last Christmas Coca-Cola experienced encouraging results for its first mobile branding campaign. It urged customers to build and send personalised mobile Christmas cards, called m-cards. The activity, which ran on the 3 UK homepage for 12 hours, achieved 579,000 page impressions, with 55,000 users clicking through to the Coke mobile-internet site.

Coca-Cola's plans to step up its mobile work next year are likely to result in increased investment in on-pack promotions that allow consumers to redeem a variety of mobile content.

Coca-Cola was unavailable for comment.