Hipcricket® ("Hipcricket"), the one-stop mobile marketing and advertising subsidiary of Augme® Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB: AUGT or "Augme"), today extended its relationship with Virginia's Mel Wheeler, Inc., owner of radio stations K92/WXLK, Q99/WSLQ and Star Country 94.9/WSLC, among others. Wheeler will now use Hipcricket's mobile marketing and listener engagement solutions at its market-leading country, hit radio and adult contemporary stations.

Wheeler saw measurable increases in listener engagement since it began a pilot program with Hipcricket at K92 in 2008, initially as a means to extend the relationship between its listeners, station and on-air personalities. Working closely with Hipcricket's account services team, the station was able to quickly implement a mobile loyalty/customer relationship management (CRM) program that made a previously passive activity--listening to the radio--interactive, by encouraging listeners to opt into their mobile listener program. These opted-in listeners became the foundation of a highly-valuable asset for the station: a database of users for re-engagement and re-marketing purposes.

Over time the station added mobile programs that encompassed local sponsors. And with the extension of its agreement with Hipcricket, Wheeler is adding new mobile programs for Q99 and Star Country 94.9.

"It was not all that long ago that our communication link with listeners was by phone to our studios, with all the inherent limitations and listener frustration (busy signals) that included. Email long ago eclipsed phone communication and now texting has dominated in terms of our listeners' off air connection to our station and personalities," said Leonard Wheeler, general manager for Mel Wheeler, Inc. "Listeners are also interested in receiving relevant content from our local sponsors--including special offers. Hipcricket has been a tremendous partner for us, and their account services team and self-service tools couple together to give us a mobile marketing and listener engagement solution that can be easily extended across our family of stations."

On the night of June 30, 2012, a storm with extraordinary winds caused massive power outages across the Roanoke-Lynchburg market. Well over 100,000 homes were without power for days as daily temperatures were 95 degrees or higher. Counties and communities throughout the market set up "cooling shelters" for those without power. Wheeler Broadcasting radio stations remained on-air with backup generators and were airing frequent updates for the cooling shelters.

"We realized that we could use texting to assist in imparting information to listeners," Wheeler said.

WXLK-K92 invited listeners to text in the name of their city or county to the station's short code and a bounce back message gave them information about cooling shelters in their specific county. "It was a very efficient way to reach everyone with one simple call to action and they were returned specific information pertinent to their location," Wheeler added.

"Hipcricket's work with Wheeler is a truly model engagement--one in which we were able to quickly prove our value and become a cornerstone element of a radio station's efforts to engage with customers and sponsors alike," said Ivan Braiker, Hipcricket's president. "We look forward to empowering them to connect with even more listeners across the multiple formats of their family of stations."

About Hipcricket

Hipcricket, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Augme Technologies, Inc. (OTC.BB: AUGT), is the one-stop mobile marketing and advertising company that empowers brands, agencies and media properties to engage customers, drive loyalty and increase sales. Hipcricket's customers connect with consumers across every mobile channel, including SMS, 2D/QR codes, mobile websites, advertising networks, social media and branded apps. Hipcricket's proven technology, strategic and marketing services and experienced account management teams have provided measurable success to a broad range of national and regional brand-name leaders (e.g., Macy's, MillerCoors, Nestle, Clear Channel) across an industry-leading 200,000+ campaigns. The company has also created the first comprehensive mobile ad network that taps into the buying power of the mass market with industry-leading capabilities to target customers via location and highly-specific demographic information across SMS, display, rich media and video.

Hipcricket is based in New York, with operations in Seattle, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami.

fama PR
Nicole Cornwell, 617-986-5014
Hipcricket@famapr.com