Pabst Brewing Co. has integrated a mobile component into its Lone Star Spirit campaign that features visual puzzles.

Previously the visual puzzles were only available under Lone Star Beer bottle caps, with the solutions available on the beer brand?s Web site. Since a key element of the campaign is to engage consumers with the puzzle games, Pabst?s Lone Star Beer asked marketing agency Archrival to develop an iPhone application as a way to deepen the engagement with the brand in a social setting.

?Most Lone Star consumers know about the puzzle caps?it?s a popular consumer activity to solve the puzzles at home or at a bar,? said Sanjiv Gajiwala, San Antonio, TX-based marketing manager for Lone Star Beer at Pabst Brewing Co. ?The app is currently available exclusively on the iPhone, but we?re definitely interested in moving it to other platforms as well.

?We?re looking for younger tech-savvy mobile consumers between 21-29, and the iPhone and the iPod touch are very popular with that demographic, especially in Austin and Houston, which are very mobile-savvy markets,? he said.

?This is our first step into mobile, and our goal is really to interact with our consumers on a personal one-to-one level, and what we like about mobile is that it is a very personal, close way to communicate with and engage the consumer.?

Pabst Brewing Co.?s Lone Star Beer markets itself with the taglines ?The National Beer of Texas? and ?It?s a Texas Thing.? Lone Star and Lone Star Light are available primarily in the state of Texas.

Archrival is an interactive youth brand marketing agency with clients that include State Farm, Microsoft, Honda and Red Bull.

Archrival has been working with Pabst Brewing Co. for a year, most recently on their ?Lone Star Spirit? campaign.

Available in the App Store, the Lone Star Puzzle Cap Decoder lets consumers figure out the puzzles originally found under Lone Star Beer bottle caps, thus encouraging consumers to engage with the brand wherever they happen to be.

The application for iPhone and iPod touch includes more than 400 puzzles.

Lone Star Beer has seen high response rates from the puzzle caps, which previous had been available only under the bottle caps, on the brand?s Web site and print guides for use at bars.

?Given the level of interest wanted to translate that into a downloadable mobile application,? Mr. Gajiwala said. ?Archrival was able to quickly and efficiently create this app that is intuitive and interactive and keeps the look and feel of the puzzle caps while transporting it to a mobile experience.

Lone Star is promoting the application with outreach via its Web site, email marketing to its consumer loyalty groups and grassroots field marketing, including on-site events and appearances at bars in key markets around the state of Texas.

?We?re excited about it, and the early feedback from our consumers has been positive,? Mr. Gajiwala said. ?We?re looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

?Look for enhancements and improvements to the functionality of the app as well,? he said.

More companies will be adding this type of integrated mobile component to their marketing campaigns as ad agencies are able to harness new development tools that make mobile application development a natural part of their repertoire.

Traditionally, ad agencies had to spend a prohibitive amount of time and money learning new development languages and frameworks in order to create applications for various mobile platforms such as Apple?s iPhone, RIM?s BlackBerry, Microsoft?s Windows Mobile, Palm?s WebOS, Nokia?s Symbian and Google?s Android.

Archrival created the Puzzle Caps application using Appcelerator?s Titanium mobile platform, which enables developers to create native mobile applications using only their existing Web development skills.

Pabst?s Lone Star Beer application built by Archrival using Titanium is an example of the type of affinity applications that will likely come to market as consumer brands expand their marketing efforts for an integrated media play, including the Web, Facebook and a mobile component.

?Our clients are increasingly looking to extend their brand beyond a Web and social media presence to integrate a mobile component to their ad campaign,? said Charles Hull, partner and director of creative services at Archrival, Lincoln, NE.

?With Titanium, we were able to quickly and cost-effectively build a fun and interactive iPhone application that deepens consumers? engagement with the Lone Star brand in a social setting,? he said.

?This platform has opened up a whole new window of opportunity for us to add mobile applications to our repertoire, and in so doing to help our clients with increasingly powerful integrated campaigns.?