Most marketers’ reaction to the remarkable rise of the smartphone has been to launch their own branded app. But as a recent report from consulting firm Deloitte reveals, most of these branded apps fail.

Although the fact that less than 1% of apps produced by brands are downloaded more than 1m times is hardly surprising, the fact the 80% of apps can’t muster more than 1,000 downloads is profoundly shocking. Serious levels of marketing investment are clearly being wasted.

So where are brands going wrong?

Deloitte themselves espouse the theory that as apps become more popular, and their audience becomes more sophisticated, brands are having to ‘up their game’. It’s clear from their findings that many aren’t.

And branded apps have to compete with other offerings that have come from nowhere to become brands in their own right – the phenomenal success of Rovio Mobile’s ‘Angry Birds’ is a prime example.

Part of the answer may well be, as Deloitte suggest, that brands need to make greater use of smartphone features such as the camera and GPS to build sharing and location-based features into their apps to make them more engaging.

However, the solution is probably simpler than that.

It’s that brands need to build apps that deliver genuine utility to users rather ones that are purely marketing exercises. And if they can’t think what that utility might be, they should spend their money on something else.

Too many brands have jumped on the app bandwagon without a proper appreciation of where mobile fits into their brand’s interaction with its consumers.  As a result, poorly conceived apps are launched with limited utility that unsurprisingly fail to leap to the top of the app charts.

The second big mistake that brands make is to think that the sudden appearance of their brand name in the app store is enough to see downloads soaring.  As with any new product, brands need to have a coherent and logical strategy for promoting their app – at appropriate times and through appropriate channels – if they want to maximise their download potential.

The rewards for brands that do create successful apps are considerable – a constant and loyalty enhancing relationship with the consumers that have taken the time to download and use their app.

But the potential rewards shouldn’t blind marketers to the pitfalls – poorly conceived or delivered apps that can have a negative impact on their brand’s equity.

Too many create apps because they feel like they should and launch something of little use, either because they’re ‘brand’ rather than ‘consumer’ centric or because there was little utility that the brand could offer via an app in the first place.

An app does not equate to a mobile strategy. At best, it should form part of a broader mobile marketing effort.  But marketers should seriously consider before they invest whether an app is appropriate for their brand at all.

By: Graham Painter

Posted in Mobile, Online | No Comments »

Tablets have been around for over a year but although penetration figures have now been revealed for both the UK and US markets, we still know little about who’s buying them.

However, some of that fog was lifted, for the US at least, by the latest Pew Internet & American Life Project research into mobile device ownership, undertaken in May 2011.

The Pew Study’s penetration figures for the US market largely concurred with  – those already released by Nielsen showing growth from 5% in November 2010 to 8% by the time of the survey in May 2011.  However, as suggested by the Nielsen study, tablet growth, though impressive, was eclipsed by the increased penetration of ereaders which grew from 6% to 12% in the same period.

However, the Pew study looked beyound penetation and incorporated data on owner demographics too. In the absence of equivalent stats for the UK market, these results provide a good early marker for the types of people who are purchasing and using tablets.

Firstly, as expected, the category is male dominated – 10% of US men own a tablet compared to 6% of women. And penetration of tablets amongst men has grown faster in the past 6 months (up from 6% to 10%) than for women (up from 4% to 6%) – not only are tablet owners predominantly male, but the proportion of male owners is growing.

Tablet purchase is also biased towards younger age groups.  Those most likely to own a tablet are aged between 18-29 (12% penetration), followed by those aged 30-49 (9%). However, it’s interesting to note that ownership only falls away sharply amongst 65+s (2%) – penetration amonst 50 – 64s is still a healthy 8%. Clearly, tablets are not just the young person’s new plaything.

The final useful nugget of information the Pew Study reveals is that the most affluent are almost twice as likely to own one vs. the overall population. Penetration amongst those with household incomes above $75k is 17% against 8% for the US as a whole.

This backs up our view that tablets in general, and the iPad in particular, hold significant potential for premium and luxury brands, both in terms of apps and advertising, if they can tailor their offering to take advantage of the specifics of the media i.e. large screen format and interactivity.

It is still early days for the tablet but penetration is expected to continue to rise rapidly – emarketer estimates penetration will almost triple between the end of 2010 and the end of this year. And some publications are starting to post some impressive numbers for their iPad editions – for example, the Times reported 35,000 subscribers for its iPad edition at the beginning of last month, and those subscribers had an average household income in excess of £100,000.

Even with a rapidly growing and affluent user base, and the emergence of some genuinely credible promotional vehicles to reach them, we don’t think the iPad hasn’t arrived as a key vehicle for premium and luxury advertisers yet. But there’s little doubt it will do soon.

By: Graham Painter

Posted in Mobile, Online | No Comments »