This post is part of the with DoubleClick series, highlighting stories and perspectives from industry leaders about how they are succeeding with an integrated digital marketing platform.

T-Mobile is one of the largest mobile providers in the US. As a cutting-edge company, it was fitting that they create a cutting-edge brand experience when it came time to showcase the powerful new Samsung Galaxy S5.


The team was looking to maximize reach on mobile devices for the digital campaign. But ads built using Flash - the animation standard for many years - was a big obstacle in getting mobile reach, as the format won’t render on mobile at all. So instead of engaging with rich ads, mobile users are served a static backup image. With over 25% of all global web usage occurring on smartphones or tablets*, that's a bad experience for users, and lost opportunity for advertisers.

T-Mobile, along with its agencies, Publicis Seattle and Optimedia, turned to the DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform, and built rich, engaging HTML5 creatives to solve this shortcoming. HTML5 is a universal language for display ads that ensures they render seamlessly across any screen - smartphone, tablet, or desktop. Beyond improving campaign reach, the team would no longer need to build separate creative assets for desktop and mobile, saving lots of creative time and resources.

They then targeted a tech-savvy audience across devices. Optimedia was even able to target users of competing mobile providers, to entice them to switch to T-Mobile, thanks to the targeting capabilities available in DoubleClick Campaign Manager.


T-Mobile's campaign results confirmed the power of HTML5:
  • Eliminated 85% of all instances of static mobile creatives. There was a 1.1% creative backup rate on HTML5 impressions, versus 7.3% for Flash.
  • Mobile CTR was 400% that of desktop. The team believes this improved result was due largely to HTML5 providing a more richly engaging experience for more mobile users.
  • Equal or better performances than Flash desktop ads in key conversion categories. Once on T-mobile.com, users who had clicked on HTML5 smartphone ads were just as likely or more likely than Flash desktop users to explore content, interact, and show intent to purchase.
  • Lower serving fees. "HTML5 uses cloud technology, so its file sizes are much smaller than Flash," says Nelson Fortier. "This results in lower ad serving fees, saving T-Mobile valuable media dollars."
Armed with these results, T-Mobile and Publicis Seattle have begun using HTML5 for other campaigns with DoubleClick.

"We saw a huge difference with HTML5 compared to similarly-targeted Flash banners," says Nelson Fortier of Publicis Seattle. "It’s compelling proof that with HTML5 and DoubleClick, T-Mobile's reach on both desktop and mobile devices far eclipsed that of Flash-based ads."

To learn more about the team's approach and results, check out the full case study here.

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* "2014 Internet Trends," by Mary Meeker. Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, Byers, May, 2014.  http://goo.gl/DxrLAJ