Research out from location based social network Brightkite shows that 38% of mobile and 59% of iPhone owners recall seeing ads on their phones.
With brands looking to connect with the growing number of consumers who use smart phones to go online, this is a great result, right?
Well, with respect Brightkite asking someone if they saw in ad is a bit 'so what.' What I'd like to know is if any of those 38% / 59% could recall the individual ads and / or were prompted to do something as a result of it.
Of more interest though is this piece from AdAge by Garrick Schmitt, that talks about 'app-vertising.'
Rather than developing straight forward ads, brands are connecting with audiences via the 35,000 applications that have flooded the iTunes apps store for iPhone and iPod touch owners.
A good example that we posted about the other month is one from North Face, which goes easy on the sales pitch but instead - for free - serves up snow forecasts for ski resorts.
Ad Age also mentions the Adidas Urban Art Guide, which acts as a walking guide to Berlin's street art and is integrated with Microsoft Virtual Earth.
Adidas and North Face show a few of the ingredients for branded applications to actually be downloaded and used. Namely:
1 - Make it free. Charging and seeking to recoup your costs is by and large a non starter
2 - Make it interesting. So it gets stand out on the thousands of other apps out there
3 - Make it useful for your target audience, as NorthFace did. Give people a cause to use it again and again rather than being a one hit wonder.
One thing is for sure, we're only at the start of the branded app tidal wave with analysts Sanford Bernstein estimating that mobile advertising will become a $7.2 billion market by 2012, up from just over $700 million last year.
Image credits - Diego Sepulveda
Related articles by Zemanta- Barron's: Apple Take From App Store is 'Not Much' (cultofmac.com)
- The App Store hits one billion downloads! (tuaw.com)
Link to original postLink to original post
Link to original post