Fox's Mobile Marketing

It wasn't long ago that I wrote about my reticence toward cell phones in an article on Electronics Boutique (NASDAQ:ELBO) and its involvement in the mobile gaming industry. I find myself yet again composing a piece about the leveraging of this telecommunication platform by a major company, this time for purposes of marketing a television property.

Fox (NYSE:FOX) has had good luck with its series 24. Any successful series that returns for yet another season oftentimes needs some creative schemes to keep the momentum going. This time, the scheme will involve Vodafone (NYSE:VOD) and its 3G technology, which allows for distribution of sharp audio and video data on mobile phones. A 24-minute film titled 24: Conspiracy will be broken up into episodes lasting 60 seconds each and will be available to users next year in more than 20 countries (including the Unites States), according to a Reuters article. Verizon Wireless -- which is owned by both Vodafone and Verizon (NYSE:VZ) -- will be the U.S. connection for the project.

Although the one-minute episodes will be an alternative take on the series and won't feature the same characters, it should be an effective promo. Mobile marketing is indeed becoming a pervasive and exacting science, and the folks over at Fox seem to be onto a good idea. Producing the 24-minute film probably won't eat up a lot of capital, and the footage could easily be amortized via inclusion as an added-value extra in a future DVD release.

Cell phones have been used for interactive marketing for a long time now, and while I've never owned a cell and have never experienced the glorious art of text messaging, I am aware that it has been used, for example, by Viacom's (NYSE:VIA) MTV channel to bond with its target demographic. This is a smart way for media companies to reach hip audience bases by exploiting newer technologies and bringing those potential viewers back to traditional mediums.

Guess I better start shopping around for a cell phone if I want any hope of becoming hip again (but then again, I don't think I ever was).

More related topics:

• Check out Verizon's latest earnings report.
• Is Vodafone lost in translation?
• Fox and its latest earnings trot.

Fool contributor StevenMallas owns none of the companies mentioned.