Mobile Discovery and VivaKi Ventures Partner to Connect Offline and Online Advertising
Reston, VA - (Marketwire - November 12, 2008) - Today Mobile Discovery and VivaKi Ventures, the strategic partnership and investment arm of Publicis Groupe's new division VivaKi, announced a strategic alliance designed to help advertisers and marketers make their offline media spend more interactive, accountable and measurable.
Mobile Discovery's Connected Media Platform™ (CMP) enables advertisers and their agencies to create campaigns for offline media (print, out-of-home or broadcast) that include a 'digital return path' that allows consumers to respond to the ad using their mobile phone.
"While a myriad of mobile enabling technologies like SMS, 2D barcodes, and image recognition each individually promise to magically marry offline and online advertising, only Mobile Discovery has a single, holistic, end-to-end solution that integrates all these great technologies and makes them easily accessible and manageable for our agencies and their clients", said Tim Hanlon, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of VivaKi Ventures. "Mobile Discovery has effectively built the first comprehensive ad management platform for connecting offline and online advertising."
The Mobile Discovery CMP provides advertisers and agencies a web-based system that allows them to create, execute and report on integrated offline/online campaigns. Whenever an advertiser wants its offline advertising – in a magazine, newspaper and/or an outdoor campaign – to be immediately actionable by a consumer it can use the CMP to enhance the campaign creative with an SMS shortcode, a scannable 2D barcode or another 'digital return path' that a consumer can act on immediately, using their mobile phone, to request more information or transact on the offer.
"We help advertisers generate online leads through offline media", said David Miller, CEO of Mobile Discovery. "We help advertisers turn a moment of offline attention into an engaging and interactive online experience. Offline ads can now trigger multimedia experiences on consumer's phones, creating the opportunity to engage, explore or transact instantly over the mobile Web. In addition, the platform's powerful, real-time performance-based analytics, based on consumer interactions, finally enables marketers to truly view how their offline media performs."
Through the alliance, Mobile Discovery will make it's CMP available to the vast portfolio of advertisers represented by the VivaKi network (which encompasses Digitas, Starcom MediaVest Group, ZenithOptimedia, PhoneValley, and many others) helping them maximize their offline media spend by enabling a digital return path that allows consumers to engage, explore and transact online.
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About Mobile Discovery™
Mobile Discovery™ provides the platform that connects offline media and advertising to the online world. Mobile Discovery enables a return path for consumers to the mobile Web and the PC based Internet, making media and advertising actionable and measurable. The platform leverages the power of offline media and combines it with the interactivity of digital media allowing marketers to not only reach, but interact and transact with consumers. The platform is a comprehensive management system for offline publishers and advertisers and provides for the provisioning, activation, management, tracking and analysis of integrated offline/online mobile marketing campaigns. Mobile Discovery is a privately held company based in Reston, VA.
About VivaKi:
VivaKi is a new strategic entity that leverages the combined scale of Digitas, Starcom MediaVest Group, Denuo and ZenithOptimedia to maximize investments and partnerships. Launched by Publicis Groupe in June of 2008, VivaKi focuses exclusively on improving the performance of advertisers' marketing investments in the context of rapidly expanding digital markets. The VivaKi Nerve Center is the world's largest center for developing new technologies, platforms and tools clients need to succeed in an increasingly digital environment. Web Site: www.vivaki.com
Media Contacts:
Nsikakabasi Obotetukudo
Mobile Discovery
nsi@mobilediscovery.com
Cheri Carpenter
EVP, Director of Corporate Communications for VivaKi
(312) 220-6218