HipCricket gets a $6 million pickup

Posted Jun 7th 2007 10:50AM by Tom Taulli
Filed under: General Electric (GE), Coca-Cola (KO), Clear Channel Commun (CCU)

This week, HipCricket snagged $6 million from investors.

Founded in 2004, the company has built a full-blown offering to help companies with marketing campaigns on mobile devices.

"Business has been nonstop lately," said Ivan Braiker, who is the CEO of HipCricket. "It's hard to keep up with all the customer leads."

Basically, HipCricket uses text messaging as the medium for its ads. "If you are in your car and hear an interesting ad, you can text for more information," said Braiker. "It's a strong lead for advertisers and we can show the ROI. We've seen response rates of up to 40%."

So it should be no surprise that the company has partners like Clear Channel (NYSE: CCU), Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), and GE's (NYSE: GE) NBC.

Keep in mind the following: For those radio listeners with cell phones, more than a third use texting when responding to ads.

According to Braiker: "We think that major brand advertisers on radio won't entertain a campaign unless there is some type of mobile marketing component."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Tags: HipCricket, Mobile marketing, MobileMarketing