Ypulse Sponsored Interview: Brian Johnson, Co-Founder, Reach Messaging
Posted by meredith on 04-10-2009
Today’s Ypulse Sponsored Interview is with Brian Johnson, Co-Founder of Reach Messaging. Brian and fellow co-founder Jeff Bishop sponsored at last year’s Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup East where they spoke about Reach Messaging and its youth-targeted interactive instant messaging applications. This interview is part of that sponsorship.
For more helpful insights on how teens are using instant messaging and mobile technology, don’t miss the Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup Event in June. Register today and take advantage of our Early Adopter Rates!
Ypulse: How did you get the idea for Reach Messaging?
Brian Johnson: We came up with the idea of providing test prep quizzes on an IM platform, since most teens use IM on a regular basis. This was actually our first bot and as no great surprise we quickly found that teens are more interested in fashion, celeb gossip, quizzes and polls than taking tests.
YP: How has the explosion of texting impacted the IM market, if at all? Who do you consider the core IM demographic?
BJ: The IM market has definitely felt a slight impact with the popularity of texting growing on a daily basis. Especially since on early model cell phones, IMing was much more difficult than texting/sms. Now with the new generations of smart phones, this dynamic has reversed and IMing is as easy and actually more compelling than simple sms. Just look at how easy and compelling AIM is on the iPhone…the core IM demographic is 16-25.
YP: How important is it to offer something of value when using IM as a tool to reach youth? Describe a Reach campaign you think really did that well.
BJ: As long as you make the tool cool, IM is a great way to reach youth. We just launched a Britney Spears campaign on our celeb bot, GossipinGabby. In the first day, over 2,000 users adopted the Britney Expression (skin) and we directed over 5,000 users to the Britney website.
The metrics from Britney’s Takeover over 30 days included 798,000 unique users who spoke to the Bot during the campaign and viewed the Britney Expression; 8,358,400 page views of the Britney Expression; 28,621 users were sent to the BritneySpears.com site; 12,345 users adopted the Britney Expression and shared it with 98,767 users.
YP: What are teens doing on IM besides just communicating/chatting?
BJ: Digesting content – i.e. using out bots, LOL. Seriously, they are doing polls, quizzes and playing games. Teens use IM as a source to kill time in small doses as well as sty in touch throughout the day.
YP: Anything else you think Ypulse readers should know?
BJ: We have also recently launched our first sister web site www.dailygab.com which is hosted by one of our Bot persona’s “Gabby” which is proving to be a valuable alternative to purely getting their info via IM… In its first month it hit nearly 200K users and will be growing very fast as we are rapidly climbing the google and yahoo search engines.
More on Reach Messaging
The goal of Reach Messaging is to help publishers and advertisers reach millions of tweens, teens, and generation Y—where they handout most—on the internet and mobile Instant Messaging Platforms.
Categorized under: 2008 Mashup East, Web