Folgers is leveraging a mobile application to mix up its classic marketing jingle for consumers.

The Folgers Insta-Jingle app lets consumers customize the brand?s famous ?Best Part of Wakin' Up? jingle. The app is available for free download from Apple?s App Store.

"In downloading the app and recording a customization, there doesn't appear to be anything that happens following the recording other than in the instructions a small amount of text that suggests consumers share their customized jingle socially," said Marci Troutman, CEO of SiteMinis, Atlanta.

"It would be much more successful if a jingle was chosen to be a part of a campaign, rather than just random recording that is lost in a void," she said. "I think consumers may be intrigued, download the App once and then it won't be used again."

Ms. Troutman is not associated with Folgers. She commented based on her expertise on the subject.

Folgers did not meet press deadline.

How it works
When consumers open the app, a large circle in the middle of the homepage encourages consumers to begin recording their song.

Additionally, the company?s logo is splashed across the top left-hand corner of the page.
 
Consumers can pick from three different genres to personalize their jingle ? country, rock and roll and R&B.

Folgers is banking on consumers sharing their remixed songs once they are created.

Options to share content via Facebook, Twitter and email are heavily promoted at the bottom of the page.

Alternatively, consumers can also name and save the voice recordings in the app to listen to later.

Although the app is simple, it is straight-forward in helping Folgers reimagine the brand?s classic marketing jingle with digital components.

To help promote the new app, Folgers sent out an email blast to its Folger?s Wakin? Up Club list last week.

The Folgers email

Voice personalization
Voice recognition is gaining traction with mobile marketers.

As mobile continues to become more sophisticated, voice recognition is being used to spur engagement and bring consumers back to an app multiple times.

For example, Hearst Magazines? Esquire magazine rolled out an app earlier this year to feature its style, drink and fashion content. By speaking into their devices, consumers could find content that matched their interests (see story).

In this case, voice recognition helps Folgers create custom, tailored content for its users to create buzz around its brand.

Folgers has used campaign-specific apps in the past, too.

For the holidays last year, the company rolled out a themed app that let consumers create customized messages. The app was also meant to help the company build up its email database (see story). 

"Brands should consider apps that encompass more than one action," Ms. Troutman said.

"Consumers are less likely to download multiple apps for a single brand, and ultimately get frustrated if the option of engagement they are looking for includes yet another download," she said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York