Nestlé?s Crunch Cereal has launched its very first mobile campaign just in time for the back-to-school season.

The campaign is running in France and is powered by Phonevalley, in partnership with Zenith Optimedia. Crunch Cereal is targeting the 13-18 year-old demographic in hopes of promoting its cereals to them based on the affinity of this target group with mobile and its appetite for entertainment.

?Crunch Cereals communicates yearly in August and September to reach out 13-18 year-old consumers,? said Alexandre Mars, CEO of Phonevalley and head of mobile at Publicis Groupe, Paris.

?This period starts the new school year, and for a breakfast cereals product, it?s a perfect timing to involve that target group,? he said. ?This year, Crunch Cereals was willing to set up a marketing operation that would last all year long and engage its consumers on a long-term basis.?

Phonevalley is a mobile marketing firm. Zenith Optimedia is a media services giant.

Nestlé is a nutrition, health and wellness company committed to increasing the nutritional value of food and improving the taste.

Nearly 3.5 million out of the 4.5 million French people ages 13-18 own a mobile phone and 89.5 percent of them send SMS on a regular basis, according to M:Metrics.

Additionally, almost 23 percent of the 13-18 year-old French demographic play games on their mobile phones.

To drive traffic to the download area of the game and to increase awareness of the operation, Phonevalley planned a media campaign on targeted mobile portals.

Banners were displayed on MSN and Skyrock throughout the month of August.

This is not the first time that Nestle? has tapped mobile to promote one of its brands.

As part of its Happy New School Year campaign, Nestle? cobranded a mobile and online organizational tool for families to build an emotional connection with them.

Cozi is a free service available on mobile and online that helps busy families organize and simplify their daily lives. The service is now available at http://www.nestlefamily.com and is a branding tool for Nestlé (see story).

Nestlé's coffee brand Nespresso launched Nespresso Mobile, a multimedia coffee experience that is one of the first Flash Lite 3.1 mobile applications available for download.

By taking advantage of the newest version of Adobe Flash Lite Distributable Player, this service-oriented application represented a new step in Nespresso's mobile strategy (see story).

Additionally, Nestlé's Arrowhead water used a mobile sweepstakes to build awareness around its association with Universal Studios' The Mummy and to build a database of consumers to remarket to.

Nestlé tapped mobile marketing firm HipCricket to power the campaign. Signs at convenience stores nationwide asked consumers to text to enter the sweepstakes to win an action-packed day at Universal Studios Hollywood, CA, and an ARCO gas card (see story).

It is no surprise that Nestlé turned to mobile once again.

?Phonevalley recommended Crunch Cereals a mobile strategy which leverages the branded gaming capabilities of mobile,? Mr. Mars said.

?The Crunch Cereals mobile game, available on the mobile site, is directly downloaded on the mobile phone of the brand?s target group, and remains there permanently for a long-term commitment,? he said.