Back when interactive advertising was young, everyone thought a campaign had to be integrated with an online component. And why not? The web offered a hot destination for consumers, and every industry executive on Madison Avenue was trumpeting interactive and ecommerce as the next big thing.

Led by innovative youth brands such as Reebok, web-to-mobile became a popular example. Consumers were quite happy to receive text messages via phone for chances to visit a company’s website in hopes of cashing in on web promotions.

What came next changed the dynamic forever. Soon we began to see an influx of campaigns from entertainment brands as wide-ranging as artists Madonna and Nelly, each with a unique cross-promotional message. The first-ever mobile marketing campaign for a record label proved an immediate hit with Nelly fans, because it enabled Nelly to move from #11 to #3 on BET’s popular music request program "106th and Park."

Now, a new breed of branding has moved to the forefront, and we could be in the midst of the most powerful and effective medium yet -- product-label branding to mobile.

In contrast to the decline of web promotions, we’re seeing that product-label-to-mobile has higher response rates than when consumers receive promotions on their cells and have to visit a website to register and claim a prize.

Product-label-to-mobile offers such advantages as instant-win opportunities -- often within seconds, consumers can punch in a short code and find out if they've won -- and online validation -- entering a phone number prevents fraudulent re-use of winning numbers by other cell phone users.

While innovative brands have long sought to integrate mobile into their campaigns, right now only the cool kids on the block understand the power of brand mobility.

Jose Cuervo recently launched a text-in-to-win campaign in which users could get free digital music. In a related endeavor, Absolut Vodka is creating its own text-in campaign in which consumers will receive Absolut-branded ring tones and wallpaper this summer. And with the immediacy of cell phone rewards programs, these two brands are creating massive mobile consumer opt-in lists. How's that for efficiency?

Other consumer packaged goods giants have developed their own opt-in approaches to reach consumers. Last year, Kellogg's allowed users to opt in via text for a chance to get an enormously popular Kellogg’s Corn Pops wallpaper (who would’ve thought?), and a few major brands (which we cannot name yet) have finally entered the U.S. cross-carrier mobile marketing mix with several summer promotions on pack.

Along with the lure of instant-win promotions and database-driven incentives, marketers can target ads based on geographic reporting -- yes, the ever elusive LBS (Location Based Services) is finally becoming a reality. Using GPS, advertisers have access to real-time information, such as which area codes are participating, plus they get instant metrics. Consumers get ads based on their location, and immediate alerts to concerts and other events of interest.

Mapping an effective product-label-to-mobile strategy includes several steps. An important first one is finding a mobile agency partner that understands that the way a campaign is handled can be crucial in creating a memorable customer promotion.

Here are some simple steps to get started:

When buying messages, don't exceed the message cap. Buy two percent to five percent of the number of packages being created. For example, if you have 100M packages, buy a 200k to 500k message cap. This will maintain interest in your campaign over the long-haul.

Go cross-carrier. A good mobile agency works with a variety of carriers; your campaign may not reach your optimal mass market and may never get off the ground if only one or two carrier networks are covered.

Cross-promoting mobile sweepstakes, rewards and coupons generates great buzz. And to get the most from a campaign, make sure the message is fully integrated into your marketing mix (i.e. websites, online media buys, TV/radio commercials, billboards, on pack ).

Provide extra incentives for users to participate in the promotion from their mobile phones. Send wallpaper, ring tones or a mobile video to everyone or to contest winners who participate in the campaign.

Promotions, prizes and coupons are a few tools to get consumers to interact with your brand via cell phone; but once that connection is created, product-label-to-mobile becomes a win-win for everyone.