Built around an expandable banner ad appearing at the top of the Huffington Post newsfeed on mobile, the campaign showcases several new products, including Quaker Real Medleys SuperGrains and Quaker Real Medleys Granola. Red-and-while icons overlaid on top of the product images indicate interactive hot spots where viewers can tap to reveal some of the ingredients found in the different flavors. 

?One of the reasons mobile is a powerful advertising platform for brands is because unlike desktop and television, it is a tactile experience,? Jeremy Sigel, director of mobile for North America at Essence. ?For many people, the act of touch and being physically engaged in a hands-on activity is the best way to learn and retain information. 

?Employing hotspots in mobile ads achieves this objective,? he said. 

?While mobile ads and even video that utilize hot spots are not new, I do not see many brands leveraging them. While the value may seem apparent, as an industry, we need to prove that additional creative production required to develop tactile experiences, does equate to increased brand lift and awareness." 

The expandables?
The campaign begins with a banner ad placed on top of the lead image in the Huffington Post mobile newsfeed. The ad features the SuperGrains Oatmeal product and urges viewers to tap to expand. 

When users tap on the ad, it expands to take up much of the screen. The top portion of the screen has a series of product images which viewers can swipe through consisting of different flavors of Real Medleys SuperGrains Oatmeal and Real Medleys Granola. 

Each image features three or more interactive hot spots that, when tapped, reveals an ingredient. 

Viewers are also encouraged to tap a red button to learn more. Doing so brings them to a mobile-optimized Quaker landing page with information about the Real Medleys line. 

The bottom half of the expanded ad is divided into two boxes, one of which encourages viewers to read reviews of the product. Tapping on this box replaces the top portion of the screen with customer reviews. Viewers can tap on the second box to bring the upper screen back to the product images. 

Memorable experiences?
While hot spots are a great way to bring interactivity to mobile ads, not a lot of marketers are employing them. 

The fact that more brands are not leveraging hot spots in mobile ads speaks to the challenges that are marketers are facing with proving out the return-on-investment on mobile. Hot spots do require additional creative input and without a known ROI, securing the extra budget may not happen. 

Nissan used hot spots in a winter-themed tablet video ad last year (see story). When users tapped on them, snippets of information about winter weather appeared. 

In early February, Reckitt Benckiser's Lysol ran a campaign on the Huffington Post news feed on mobile that delivered relevant content across several areas of interest, introduced a new product and featured engaging visuals as well as quizzes while still being easy to navigate (see story). 

Earlier this month, Nissan drove customized, local car-shopping experiences via a native ad on Huffington Post that made it easy for readers to build their desired vehicle configuration and get a quote from a nearby dealer (see story).

"To do mobile creative right, brands need to leverage unique device capabilities and get consumers to physically connect through touch, tap and swipe immediately or risk losing them,? Mr. Sigel said.