App From The A.P. Gets Ad Campaign

By STUART ELLIOTT

One of the most robust advertising categories these days is media, as companies like Time Warner, Viacom, News Corporation, Disney, CBS and Discovery Communications promote their television, film and other entertainment products and properties.

Now joining the ranks of those giants, albeit in a small way, is The Associated Press, the not-for-profit cooperative American news agency. The A.P. is, for what it believes to be the first time, running advertising aimed at consumers.

The ads, beginning to appear this week, are intended to promote The A.P.'s mobile news app, called A.P. Mobile. The app, which is free, can be downloaded from a Web site, getapmobile.com, as well as obtained from sources that include the app stores on Apple, Android, Blackberry and Windows phones.

The A.P. has run ads before that were aimed at journalists, saluting employees who have won press awards and honors; those ads appeared in newspa pers and on Web sites read by reporters and editors like poynter.org.

The ads for the app, by contrast, are intended for the general public. They are in the form of posters that are being displayed on the Metro-North New Haven, Harlem and Hudson lines.

“We have to think about a marketing strategy,” said Jim Kennedy, senior vice president for strategy and digital products at The A.P. in New York. “That's brand-new territory.”

“Mobile will be the place for breaking news,” he added, “and we've got to get our brand out there.”

The goal of the campaign is to help “build our base of usage” for the app, Mr. Kennedy said. “Just being in the App Store is not good enough.”

The A.P. introduced the initial version of the app in 2008, he added, and a redesigned version was brought out in March for devices like iPads and iPhones.

“There have been nearly 2 million downloads of the new app since March,” Mr. Kennedy said, and the app receivesd 60 million page views each month.

There are plans to upgrade the Android version in stages by the end of the year, he added.

The A.P. app is ad-supported, with the ads sold by a company named Verve Wireless. Recent advertisers have included Fidelity and Porsche, Mr. Kennedy said.

The ads for A.P. Mobile were created internally at The A.P. In keeping with the just-the-facts reputation of the news service, the ads are straightforward and free of glitz.

The posters depict three reasons why consumers would want the app: to get the latest news, sports information and entertainment coverage.

“A.P. Mobile. It's about getting it right,” says the ad for news, which shows a photograph of a riot in Cairo. The app offers “breaking global and local news at your fingertips,” the ad promises.

The ad for sports features a photograph of Eli Manning of the New York Giants. “A.P. Mobile. It's what' s in the moment,” the headline reads; the ad goes on to say the app provides “Every game. Every season. A.P. covers all the action.”

(“I just felt like we might as well have a New York team,” Mr. Kennedy said, and with the coming of football season it made sense to use a football player rather than a baseball player.)

The ad for entertainment coverage features a photo of the actress Charlize Theron. The headline reads: “A.P. Mobile. It's what's in the spotlight.” According to the ad, the app offers “All the names. All the glamour. A.P. covers entertainment.”

The budget for the campaign, which is to run through October, is in the low five figures, Mr. Kennedy said.

“We'll see how it goes,” he added. “It's a great test to see if people would respond.”