The company is running the mobile campaign within Pandora’s iPhone application. The campaign is a great way to educate consumers to make purchases using their smartphones.

“The DSW campaign is unimpressive both in its visuals and messaging,” said Simon Buckingham, CEO of Appitalism, New York.

“Mobile marketing campaigns should feel specific, whereas this campaign is generic for DSW itself and offers no specific offers or items or shoe brands to entice mobile consumers,” he said. “This looks like a non-mobile campaign shoe-horned into a mobile format- for example, there is no store locator on the mobile site.

“The consumer is expected to get excited by ‘slamming style’ and then must enter their own search term to engage.”

Mr. Buckingham is not affiliated with DSW. He commented based on his expertise on the subject.

DSW did not respond to press inquiries.

Mobile sales
DSW is running expandable and audio ads with a short and brief call-to-action: Shop Now.

When consumers tap on the mobile ads they are redirected to the company’s mobile-optimized site where they can shop the latest looks.

While there, users can shop by category including women’s, men’s, kids, athletic, handbags, luxury and clearance.

Additionally, consumers can find the nearest DSW location to browse products in person.

Through the mobile site, customers can also check their order status, use the search functionality at the top of the screen to look for something particular and log-in to their account.

A mobile campaign such as this is a great way to drive sales and traffic to DSW’s mobile site.

Nowadays, consumers are on-the-go and therefore, reaching them on a device that they always have on-hand is smart.

Past efforts
Mobile advertising is a great way for marketers to drive consumers to their mobile sites.

Marketers are increasingly tapping on the channel to drive user interaction.

“DSW is primarily a female-oriented brand so it’s not clear why the generic image shown is of a man and it’s not clear why the messaging from their TV campaigns isn’t included in this mobile campaign, which looks like it was designed in complete isolation from both the medium and the brand,” Mr. Buckingham said.

“DSW should give mobile consumers a reason to ‘Shop Now’ rather than no incentive whatsoever. Consumers are faced with an empty search box, an empty bag with zero items in it and unspecified rewards,” he said.

“DSW isn’t so much a ‘Designer Shoe Warehouse’ with this campaign, it’s more like ‘Don’t Shop Wirelessly’.”

Final Take
Rimma Kats is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York