General Motors Co.'s Buick saw a 35 percent boost in purchase intent as a result of its mobile advertising campaign.

The automotive company partnered with Greystripe for the campaign to increase awareness and purchase intent for its Buick LaCrosse vehicle. There was a 21 percent lift in total awareness.

?Buick wanted an engaging mobile experience that increased brand awareness and intent to purchase the LaCrosse, especially with 35-54 year olds,? said Dane Holewinski, director of marketing at Greystripe, San Francisco.

?We were still pleasantly surprised with the extremely high level of user engagement demonstrated by the results of the Buick campaign,? he said. ?The overall brand metrics were quite telling and really reinforce the effectiveness of full-screen, rich media mobile campaigns versus non-rich media campaigns and banner ads.?

Greystripe is an independent mobile advertising network.

Ad awareness
According to the company, the ad achieved nearly a 4 percent click-through rate whereas non-rich full screen in the Greystripe network average a 1 percent click-through rate and online banner click-through rates range from .25 percent to .5 percent.

Fifty-three percent of consumers exposed to the campaign recalled Buick LaCrosse mobile advertising versus 4 percent in the control group, per Mr. Holewinski.

The campaign ran from December to April and was centered around Greystripe?s Immersion Ads.

The average interaction time with the ad was 28 seconds per user.

Additionally, users who engaged with the advergame portion of the ad spent 2 minutes 42 seconds interacting with the ad, on average.

The advergame asked users to repeat a sequence of four flashing colors represented by the four tires of the LaCrosse vehicle.

?Greystripe Immersion Ads are custom interactive ads that maximize user engagement and utilize multiple click options, accelerometer, audio, touch and more,? Mr. Holewinski said. ?They provide advertisers with the opportunity to engage users in a variety of ways including advergames, video and access to a brand?s mobile site.

?They are like a branded app within an ad,? he said.
 
Mobile ads
The ads come in a variety of formats including smartphone full screen interstitial, smartphone expandable banner and iPad expandable banner.

The full screen Immersion ads are 300x250 or 320x320.

Expandable banner dimensions are 320 x 48, which click to full screen. 

IPad Immersion Expandable Banner Immersion Ads are either 300x250, 728x90 or 160x600 all expanding to a full screen 768x768.

Other results included a 58 point lift in awareness of Buick mobile advertising among its target audience and a 29 percent lift in the likelihood to recommend the LaCrosse.

The ad achieved a 3.9 percent click-through rate.

?Buick was so pleased with the results of the mobile campaign that they have already begun working on another campaign for the 2011 Regal,? Mr. Holewinski said. 

Final Take