Brand marketers embrace mobile apps

Brand marketers have a new darling - mobile phone applications, or 'apps'. These downloadable, branded programs enable users to run useful and entertaining applications on their mobile devices. There are currently around 10,000 apps for the iPhone alone, reports Chilmark Research.

Mobile apps differ from standard WAP banner ads, location-based text ads and mobile video by engaging consumers and immersing them into a branded environment in which, says Phonevalley CEO Alexandre Mars, users will be more receptive to brand messages.

Just as offline advertising techniques were found to be lacking online, Internet marketing methods have been found wanting in the mobile marketing realm and mobile apps appear to be plugging that hole.

But what do they do? Mobile apps can take the form of games, information services (weather, health, finance) and even pure gimmickry, as in the case of British beer brand Carling, whose iPhone iPint app fills the screen with beer and, when tilted, makes it look as if the user is drinking it. There's even an app that looks after you while driving, using the mobile phone's GPS function, to disable texting once the vehicle moves faster than 10 miles per hour.

Scott Seaborn, head of mobile at Ogilvy Group UK has seen for himself how the popularity of mobile apps has grown. He notes that a few years ago the agency was mostly developing WAP banners. And now? "Almost every request we get from a brand these days includes a mobile application," he said, via MobiAD.

Simplicity, platform flexibility and knowing how your audience uses mobile devices are key elements to the development of a successful application, as is putting the muscle behind it to build awareness and a viral element.

Tags: brand marketing, iPhone, iPint, mobile applications, mobile apps, text ads, WAP banners