Global Cross Marketing Effectiveness Research (SMoX) conducted with The Coca-Cola Company

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) announced the results of the latest Smart Mobile Cross Marketing Effectiveness (SMoX) study, a scientific examination conducted for The Coca-Cola Company in China earlier this year. Results released at the MMA Shanghai Forum confirm that marketers would significantly improve their overall campaign performance without increasing budget, by simply raising mobile spend. According to the study, the optimal spend for mobile (based on total campaign spend, not just digital) is between 8-15%.

Conducted in combination with Marketing Evolution and InsightExpress, SMoX assesses the economic value of mobile compared to traditional marketing channels and provides brand marketers, for the very first time, empirical evidence on the impact of mobile in the marketing mix. The results from this latest study are consistent with results from other recently released studies in the U.S. with AT&T, Coca-Cola, MasterCard and Walmart. Additional studies are being conducted in U.S, China, UK, Turkey and Brazil.

“Because we strive to develop the world’s most innovative and effective marketing, we knew we had to fully understand and leverage mobile’s ability to drive the future growth of our business,” said Tom Daly, Group Director, Global Connections, at The Coca-Cola Company. “Based on the results for China, as well as the study we conducted in the U.S., we have begun to see a number of truths about mobile that provide a clear path forward, especially around marketing effectiveness. We now have the facts we needed.”

A Closer Look at the Coca-Cola Results:

    Mobile offered nearly double the ROI over TV and was twice as efficient in driving sales compared to the campaign on average
    Mobile at 8% of total budget drives 7% of the profit and mobile at 15% drives 16%
    Mobile video emerged as significantly more effective compared to both TV and digital video (around 3X). This was a greater increase than even than the strong trends seen for mobile video in the U.S. studies.
    Mobile display drove purchase intent, while mobile social drove both purchase intent and engagement

In conclusion, SMoX showed that the optimized mobile spend level is 15%, impacting sales even further and producing a double-digit profit increase.

“The market has acknowledged that there is a deep chasm between consumer behavior and what brands are currently spending on mobile, but now there is real, indisputable proof on the value of mobile to a brand’s business goals,” said Greg Stuart, CEO of the MMA. “We applaud Coke for their leadership and commitment to figuring out the true ROI of their marketing spend and aligning to consumers’ dramatic move to mobile for content, community and commerce.”

The results from China reinforce the findings of the other U.S. SMoX studies—that mobile is a key driver of business results across the entire purchasing funnel. Additionally the SMoX study highlights that mobile when executed with best practices impacts performance even further.

“With empirical data, the SMoX study with Coca-Cola in China demonstrates the impact of mobile on a business and its competitive opportunity in this region, similar to what we have observed in the United States—but with even better results,” said Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director of the MMA in Asia Pacific. “It is a great data set for marketers to reassess and optimize their spending with the most impactful allocations in their marketing mix, while leveraging mobile with double digit spend. As an industry, it is time we learned the effectiveness of the channel to aid marketers with their ambitions, and kept pace with consumers to understand the power of mobile.”