The footwear retailer is also using a Microsoft Tag in an editorial ad featured in Lucky that promotes the launch of the its fall line and its Mount Holly winter boot. Mullen worked with the company on its mobile marketing effort.

“As part of our partnership with Lucky, we negotiated a two month sponsorship of their wildly popular iPhone application, Lucky At Your Service,” said Katelyn Nugent, associate media director at Mullen, Boston. “This will run from November to December and will allow us to feature key Timberland product for direct sales purposes.

“While the Lucky At Your Service product integration is different, we felt it was a strong complement to the MT. Holly Tag execution,” she said. “While the Tag execution is educational in nature, the application execution is focused on sales.

“We will feature multiple products via a rich-media interstitial that allows users to directly purchase the product from the application.”

Editorial Tag ad
Lucky readers who pick up the November issue can visit http://gettag.mobi to download the Tag reader application.

Then, users can scan the Tag and be rerouted to the video where Penelope, a designer, takes readers through the design process of the new winter boot.

At the end of the video, the viewer has the option of watching again, or posting to Facebook.

“The strategy evolved around launching Timberland’s F’10 women’s footwear line,” said Ms. Nugent. “Mobile was one of our key pillars in creating awareness and credibility.

“The Micosoft Tag portion of our campaign was about educating the audience on key features of the Mt. Holly boot,” she said. “The video brings to life the core design elements while driving home the core Timberland brand message for women.

“Timberland has been absent from the women’s category for a while now, thus it was crucial for us to find a partner that would deliver a one-two punch.

In addition, Mullen saw that mobile would be an effective channel for Timberland to reach consumers.

“Our target is highly active thus we felt we’d be remiss if we did not incorporate a mobile component,” Ms. Nugent said. “It was critical that we give them content they could experience on their own terms.

“We also felt the Mt. Holly video was such a powerful piece of content, spoken from the voice of a designer,” she said. “Microsoft Tag is a Lucky in-book component that readers are used to seeing.

“The readers are trained to seek out this exclusive content, making it the perfect opportunity for Timberland to seed the Mt. Holly content.”

Mobile partnership
Mullen is pushing the video and Tag partnership out via three core social channels – Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Timberland has also created exclusive bag stuffers that will feature the Tag, which will be distributed in the coming weeks.

“This program is our first foray using mobile to specifically reach women, we anticipate this will continue in 2011,” Ms. Nugent said. “Previously we have launched a Timberland mobile application and WAP site which we will be enhancing over time and will continue to leverage for our active, on-the-go consumer.

Final Take