Carling goes mobile

with a nicely rounded mobile campaign as spotted here.

Just text BEER to 83400 and you'll get a wap push back to your phone which takes you to the Carling mobile site which has been built by Marvellous Mobile (or at least that's what the URL would suggest).

Once on the site, if you register, you have the chance to download a free mobile game called Canit (122kb file - good job I'm on an all you can eat package from T-Mobile), plus there's a bar finder and you can download free videos and wallpapers plus get ringtones for 50p, and have a chance to win a year's supply of beer.

The Bar Finder gives you the option to click to find a bar near you in London that sells Carling (well, that'll be most pubs won't it?). It uses LBS (Location Based Services) to check where you are (except Three and Virgin). However, when I tried it, it couldn't find my location. There is also an option to enter your postcode instead. And when I tried that, it worked fine and located 3 pubs within 1 km from my house.

The Canit game looked like fun, it identified that I had a compatible phone, and was able to download the 2nd time I tried. The game encourages you to collect Carling cans by pressing 0 on your phone and to bash the non-Carling cans by pressing the appropriate number on your keypad that corresponds to where that can is. There is a leader board where you can upload your scores and get extra chances to win the year's supply of beer.

The music section of the wap site is pretty comprehensive, including a music quiz, music news, venues, festival guide and news and also Top Ringtones. The ringtone selection this month includes polyphonic and truetones from Orson, Razorlight, The Coral, The Feeling, The Flaming Lips, The Zutons etc, all at a bargain 50p. There's nothing in the video section yet but the wallpapers were a bit poxy being photos of Carling - seen here.

Navigation on the site was pretty good and the pages loaded quickly enough.

Will it make me change my beer preference to Carling? Probably not. I like Becks. In bottles. Because a friend told me it was least likely to give me a hangover as it's a very 'pure' beer. And I believe him and I like the taste. But I still like the campaign and the thought and effort that has gone into it. What I'm interested in is how the site is going to be promoted and what kind of traction it gets with its target audience. If anyone knows, then please do comment here.