Sep 13, 2009
Apps Are The New Content
Mobile applications are quickly becoming a dominant vehicle for marketing. Any brand that is communicating with an audience and relying on the web as a vector, needs to begin to leverage this new channel. In the same way that web-pages became a requirement to communicate with an audience in the mid-nineties, applications and widgets are the new “cost-of-entry” for having an exchange with consumers.
The popularity of mobile applications are fueled by many factors, the most influential being the success of the Apple iPhone and the Apple AppStore. To compete with Apple, BlackBerry and Google have introduced similar solutions to market and sell applications for their mobile devices. There is little competition for Apple in the US market, but the competition in the mobile space has fueled innovation and a huge spike in the download and use of mobile applications. The market is hungry for applications with more than a billion apps sold in iTunes‘ application store alone.
The need for brands to allow access to their services and brands to users on the go is clear. Facebook alone has over 4 million visits a day from mobile device users. The BlackBerry application outlet reports that their most popular applications allow access to broadband based video entertainment (YouTube and Vimeo) as well as social media connection apps. When surveyed, people report that they use their mobile devices as a supplement to desktop-based interaction and while waiting for appointment, in transit or between meetings. A user’s search for interaction during these time periods and the intimacy of the device itself, give a strength to communication that has no parallel in other media. The advantage comes with several hurdles: App creators must respect the level of intimacy that is given and not waste a user’s time or be overtly promotional. Creators must also realize that they are competing for attention with friends and family members as all mobile platforms support and promote integration with FaceBook, MySpace, and a wide range of IM and chat applications. Apps must be engaging and offer an obvious offering for the opportunity to exist on a user’s mobile device. Third, and most importantly, the app must be cool. There are several examples, LastFM’s listening and music search application, or Allrecipe’s app to determine how to turn at-the-ready ingredients into an entree or the most ostentatious: I AM RICH app, sold in the Apple AppStore for $999.00. The viral aspect of an application that people are excited about will eclipse any media campaign to promote an app.
To have residence on a user’s mobile device is a commitment from the user and a level of brand engagement that is beyond comparison in the online space. Provided that the application is reliable and well constructed, having the intimate connection with users on a mobile device will shortly become the next milestone in brand identity. Companies hoping to promote themselves should not forgo their current effort or drop their current marketing successes for a new app-centric marketing model, but rather look for ways to drive traffic or have exchanges with their customers on the platforms they are using to run their lives with. Just as the web has matured since the first branded homepages, so should the integration of brands on mobile platforms.
