Back of the net

Hmmm, so in case you hadn’t noticed there’s some sort of football tournament going on. And with it comes the inevitable plethora of football-related advertising and the chance for certain brands to jump on the great round ball and score themselves lots of empathy and interest. Or something like that, anyway.

So here’s the first decent mobile service I’ve seen around Euro 2008. PUMA’s Together Everywhere works on the principle that when goals are scored, apart from turning purple in the face and falling off your seat, you want to babble about it in a very over-excited way to other like-minded fans and friends and share that glorious moment.

Here’s how it works - you sign up for the service on your mobile and you download your team’s anthem or chant ring tone. Then when your favourite team scores, you’ll hear the ringtone and if you answer, you get placed in a free one-minute chat with randomly selected people also supporting that team, or a group of friends and family that you define.

So, why do I like this? Well, I like the fact it builds on the community feeling that already so strongly exists with football. I’m guessing this is territory that PUMA will want to grow. It’s highly time-sensitive - one of mobile’s greatest assets - capitalising on that moment when you want to shout your head off at anyone who’ll listen. And it links the joyous moment with PUMA as they provide a free call - branding the happiness, if you like. When a brand can react pretty much instantaneously to an event - in this case a goal, - and offer a consumer a positive, enjoyable experience on top of that - that’s powerful.

I also like the fact it’s rewarding, thanks to the ringtone and the free chat time. And you get a PUMA Online discount code at the end of each game, sent to you via SMS.

To support everything and generate traffic to the mobile Internet site, there’s a mobile media banner ad campaign (across nine countries) and a wide-ranging media schedule including press, posters and online.

Take a look at www.pumafootball.com on your mobile and online.

Result!

Also posted on www.welovemobile.co.uk