I was in Manchester recently and couldn’t believe it when I saw a Peugeot car parked on top of the library! This is a really prominent location in Manchester with lots of passing traffic and pedestrians, including a tram stop directly opposite. Accompanied by a couple of large banner posters, it became immediately apparent that this was a deliberate marketing campaign.
You can see in the picture the people stood opposite the building. You get a lot of people congregating here as it’s a major tram stop. People have got nothing to do but look at the car and see the banner. It’s an ideal location chosen well by the marketing team.
The major call-to-action is to visit the website spot3008.com so what do you think people passing by or stood waiting for a tram are going to do? Yep that’s right, they’re going to get their phone out and have a look at the website.
So curiosity got the better of us. Rich got on his iPhone to check out what it was all about. What did we find? This:
What is the point in spending extortionate amounts of budget on marketing to not support the very platforms people will be using to access the call-to-action? What a waste!
Lisa Marie Ortega 
Good point well made! The site uses a large 360 panoramic image and we couldn’t find a way of making it work without Flash, hence why it doesn’t work on most mobile devices. That said, we can improve the experience by “softening” the error message and pointing people to our new mobile site where they can at least find out more about the 3008, if not play the game. Good article… thanks for the feedback. Andy (Internet Manager, Marketing)
Hi, that wasn’t our expectation at all. The web address is clearly promoted so I would have expected to simply leave my email address and the location and enter the competition there and then.
Thanks a lot for responding Andy.
Because it clearly states it’s a competition which is called ‘spot3008’ my expectation was that if you spotted the peugeot 3008 you could enter the competition, which would presumably ask you to enter where you’d seen the car. I had no idea it would be a game and to be honest if i’m on my phone walking down the road I just want a quick way to enter the competition anyway. Perhaps you shouldn’t have worried about needing the game for the mobile version. I think you could’ve gone with a simple form to enter the competition then once the user’s submitted their entry it takes them to the mobile 3008 site.
I know they’re not attractive, but I was also expecting there to be a QR code on there. Maybe even a giant one you could scan from across the street.
Typing on mobile is pretty annoying (and dangerous, of course, if you’re driving). I’d appreciate a way to get the site up quickly, even if I’m just going to email it to myself to look at on a flash-enabled device later. (I’ve been known to do that, but it has to be something I am VERY motivated to look at. This probably doesn’t qualify – better to avoid the flash altogether. But I digress…)
Good points, it’s all about designing or in this case, marketing, for context. And, Danielle, it’s funny that you mentioned QR codes because this story reminded me of this post: http://ow.ly/5ItC7