Tip Sheet/Mobile Marketing April/May 2009

Helpful Hints
MINDING THE APP STORE

Users with iPhones are by far the heaviest mobile Web users. Researcher Net Applications found that 66% of those reaching the mobile Web to browse or search are iPhone users.

But by another measure, application downloads, iPhone users aren’t any more active than other phone owners. Research firm In-Stat has found that smartphone users, including those on iPhones, download an average of five applications each.

Nevertheless, In-Stat is predicting that users of mobile applications stores will quadruple worldwide by 2013, from the 25 million who shop there now. That won’t be just the iTunes App Store, either, although in December Apple’s online market reached its 300 millionth download since its July 2008 launch. App stores for Google’s Android phones, for handsets from Nokia and Blackberry, and for those running Windows Mobile are expected to get a share of the apps business.

That business will have a marketing impact. “Reach for marketing applications is growing rapidly,” In-Stat principal analyst David Chamberlain said in a research note. “Those applications can provide prolonged engagement and keep the brand in focus.”

Among the brands currently offering iPhone apps are BMW’s Z4 driving game, Godiva’s candy shopping app, and Kraft Foods’ recipe-based iFood Assistant.

MAKE IT APP-EN

TIP 1:
Use iPhone’s talents. Right now, that means the accelerometer — the thing that senses a phone is being used in portrait or landscape mode and detects shaking. That powers games like RhinoBall, which promoted the Disney movie “Bolt.” Restaurant locator app Urbanspoon used it to build in fun that has made the app one of the iPhone’s most popular. Next up: location-based gaming that lets players in an area play against each other.

TIP 2:
Get good fast. IPhone apps need lots of downloads in a short time to win the high App Store rankings that spell success. According to Pinch Media, apps need 50,000 downloads to get into the top 25 downloads; six months ago, that figure was 25,000.

Strategies/MOBILE PHONES AND 40-FOOT SCREENS

Mobile phones are among our most personal possessions. We guard their privacy, shield them against spammers, and go frantic when they go missing. But ask us to use them for some fun with five, 10 or 500 strangers on a street corner, and apparently we dive right in.

For example, Carnival Cruise Lines has launched an interactive outdoor campaign that lets passersby use their mobile phones to create and then control fish in interactive storefront aquariums in six U.S. cities. Motion reactors cause plants and seaweed to sway when strollers walk by the windows, drawing their attention. And signs encourage them to dial a number on their mobile phones, create personalized fish using a voice menu, and then use the keypad to pilot them around the virtual tank.

When they’re done playing, users get a text inviting them to go to the Carnival.com/funville site for cruise information. And they can come back later and retrieve their custom fish using the same phone.

For fun on a bigger, drier scale, the Bank of America branch in New York’s Times Square rolled out a stadium-size interactive football quiz on New Year’s Eve that let up to 500 players use their mobile phones to enter answers simultaneously. Questions were flashed on the bank’s marquee sign, along with a leaderboard of player scores and the fastest respondent to each question.

And when the game was over, players got an SMS message from BofA, the official bank of the NFL, with the URL for the bank’s NFL Checking product.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Mobile users who access the Web via cell phones more than doubled in the last year, to 63.2 million worldwide.

• About 35% of those said they used the mobile Web daily, according to com-Score — also twice the daily user base of the year before.

• More than 9 million users said they accessed social networks daily via mobile, a 427% year-over-year increase.

• Other mobile content areas with strong daily-use growth included movie information (185%), business directories (161%) and entertainment news (160%).

Got a mobile marketing tip to share? Contact Brian Quinton at [email protected]