How can brands get their apps noticed?

By Dan Butcher

August 14, 2009

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NEW YORK - Is mobile advertising the best way to promote the distribution and discovery of branded smartphone applications?

Today there are more than 65,000 applications available across the various app stores, making it much tougher to get an application discovered by consumers. However, there was a divide among the digiday:Apps panelists about the best way to promote applications, with some advocating advertising across the mobile Web and within other mobile applications and some saying that ads should be only one part of a brand's overall marketing strategy.

"Have a conversation, ‘How can I make this application a fit for my campaign and my message?'" said Benjamin Mosse, director of AP Mobile at the Associated Press. "For us advertising is only one component of how we reach people.

"We're working very closely with handset manufacturers and carriers, which has driven distribution in ways advertising hasn't," he said. "Push notification to our user base has increased distribution very effectively.

"The Nokia Ovi Store is beginning to take social recommendations into account, and it's a way that Apple and BlackBerry have to go as well."

Brands with an opted-in database of consumers can get a lot of traction simply by letting them know that the applications exists, either via SMS, email or the Web.

AP Mobile

Brands with the cache of the AP can get their applications preinstalled on handsets and get placement on-deck with carriers.

So what did the panelist representing the carriers think?

"We're working closely with RIM to make sure there aren't five different app stores on the phone, which can be confusing," said Jennifer Byrne, head of business development at Verizon. "We're developing wireless carrier billing for premium subscription apps and we're opening up transactions via PayPal.

"We're working on standards for porting widgets to make it easier for brands and developers to reach scale, especially those on the free, ad-supported model," she said. "There's a lot more fragmentation than anyone anticipated even a year ago, so marketers need to go back to the basics: knowing your audience, what do they read, where do they go, what phone do they have?

"It's important to segment the audience in the way we present the companion app store online -- for the business traveler here's a great use case -- take a segment online and point them to the right place in mobile, highlighting applications that might be relevant to that reader."

Advocates of advertising used to promote applications were well-represented on the panel. Microsoft emphasizes a multi-channel approach.

"Carrier-grade advertising can be targeted by age and gender," said Steve Siegel, mobile solution specialist at Microsoft Advertising. "Targeting is the key to advertising, and the channel is less important than reaching the right audience, whether it is online, mobile or a package buy.

"The key factor is to hone in on the audience you ultimately want to put the app in front of," he said. "Mobile advertising can be targeted contextually and demographically, and it's important to promote an app in a contextually relevant place.

"If you're a publisher you may leverage the other assets you have online to promote the app -- that's how you're going to reach the largest audience."

Applications developers should take note: Microsoft believes that, while applications are not just a fad, the mobile Web will eventually offer much of the functionality and content that today can only be accessed in an optimized fashion via an application.

"For the time being, apps are very important, but as the mobile space evolves, the browser will develop a lot of the same capabilities we're seeing in apps right now," Mr. Siegel said. "How do you get to the consumers?

"The mobile Web will evolve so you'll have those rich capabilities that applications offer now," he said.

Some panelists argued that the best way to reach consumers likely to download applications is to advertise across the mobile Web and within other mobile applications. Mobile banner ads can be enabled with click-to-app-store functionality.

"If you look at the top apps in the app stores, most of them have advertised and continue to advertise, which is important for brands building apps to keep in mind," said Steve Rosenblatt, senior vice president of sales at Quattro Wireless. "For brands crying that they're getting no distribution, the critical thing is to understand the media landscape and buy quality premium content that fits your brand.

"There's so much money that's being wasted on out-of-home and other media, which is doing a great job promoting for the iPhone, but in terms of direct downloads, brands' money could be better spend within the mobile channel," he said.

Analysts from Dynamic Logic and Insight Express have found that consumers' message association and retention is consistently higher on mobile than online, according to Quattro.

"One thing that is clear to me, even if you can't do the richest most creative thing, brands are still seeing great results on the mobile platform," Mr. Rosenblatt said. "Smart, savvy marketers are recognizing that and are continuing to invest in mobile advertising.

"Content is critical, but in order to be discovered, unless they have unbelievable press about what they have done, they need to advertise to be discovered, because they will get lost," he said.

Launching a mobile application is one strategy in a marketer's tool chest. Focusing advertising spend on already-popular applications makes banner ads immediately actionable.

"When you advertize within apps, you know someone is using their phone, so they can take an action immediately," said Tony Nethercutt, vice president of sales for AdMob. "I'd like to see more of the app developers actually advertising.

"It's not happening in our world fast enough," he said. "Ads on networks work absolutely the best for distribution.

"There's a direct cause and effect between running mobile ad campaigns and getting your app ranked highly."

Having a celebrity mention your application on air doesn't hurt, either.

"Snoop Dogg went on the 'Tonight Show' and debuted his Snoop app, which is a game changer," said Vijay Chattha, chief talker at VSC's AppLaunchPR. "As a way to market apps, get celebrities involved and have them use the apps as much as possible.

"Try not to be corporate with videos promoting your app -- be bold," he said. "Especially smaller developers, try to make your videos fun and crazy so they spread virally.

"The actual content has to be really cool too."