A few months ago, I spotted an ad for Lloyds TSB in a newspaper, complete with a QR code. So I scanned the code and was mildly surprised to find it took me to the Lloyds website. Not a mobile site, but the full site.

Lloyds is not the only company to have done this, of course, but this morning, sitting in the back of a taxi, I had reason once again to engage with Lloyds’ mobile activity. I had to go to the hotel where we staged the Mobile Retail Summit yesterday and pick up various display materials to bring them back to the office, hence the need for the cab.

Sitting in the back of the cab with time to kill, I did what anyone might do, and checked out Twitter on my phone. In amongst the infographics, the rants and the words of wisdom, a Tweet from my local newspaper, the Leatherhead Advertiser, caught my eye. It linked to a story in the Telegraph headlined: ‘Australian Open ball boy who charmed tennis crowds with amazing catch becomes online favourite’.

I was intrigued by how good this catch could be, so clicked on the link. When I did, I saw the screen top left, with an ad for Lloyds Mobile Banking. That’s Mobile Banking, mind.

I clicked on the link to be taken to the screen you see to the left. Geddit? Someone at Lloyds clearly doesn’t. Who is booking mobile ads on Lloyds’ behalf that don’t take you to a mobile landing page, and who at Lloyds is signing them off? It’s not that difficult to create a campaign-specific mobile landing page. And if you don’t want to go to the trouble of doing that, have a different call to action, like click-to-call.

Hang on a minute, I thought. Maybe it wasnt a mobile campaign. I just happened to be looking at Twitter on my phone. Perhaps this was a banner ad on the Telegraph website. So I just loaded up the Telegraph on my phone, searched for ball boy and was taken to the Sports section, where I was greeted by the same banner ad, linking to the same full-fat web page.

I don’t think we had anyone from Lloyds at our event yesterday, but I think someone there needs to start getting their head round mobile before they book any more campaigns.

David Murphy
Editor