Snack brand Popchips is driving brand awareness by enabling users to place a digital sticker in photos shared on various mobile social applications.

Stickers are a popular way for users to customize their photos. Other brands such as Gap and Universal Films are also leveraging digital stickers as they look to insert themselves into native mobile user experiences.

?As a brand, we don't want to disrupt the user experience on mobile devices because they're so personal,? said Michael Parisi, senior vice president of Popchips, San Francisco. ?Instead, we're looking to be part of the native user experience and integrate ourselves into these brandable moments in time.

?As we become more of their everyday mobile and social experiences, the more we hope to become part of their everyday purchases,? he said.

?Consumers discover our stickers right after they capture their photo, while they're editing photos and right before they share them with their friends. This is part of our bigger strategy to integrate across multiple mobile applications and experiences.?

Customized content
Popchips is taking advantage of the new PhotoEffects tool from RadiumOne, which is designed to help brands make paid media display campaigns more effective.

The SDK enables app developers to customize and white label photo-sharing and effects functionality in their apps.

RadiumOne?s Photo Effects includes photo filters, borders, scenes, stickers and text effects.

Through its various integrations, PhotoEffects reaches more than 20 million active users.

With PhotoEffects, consumers are able to add their favorite flavor of Popchips to their social photos on mobile apps such as Trendyful, Voto and Travel Postcard.

Stickers are becoming a popular way for users to enhance their photo content, with Facebook recently introducing its own Sticker Store.

Connecting with fans
Popchips has been actively experimenting with new mobile engagement strategies.

At the end of last year, the brand helped members of the military stay in touch with family during the holidays by enabling them to send free personalized postcards from the Postcard on the Run mobile app (see story).

Last fall, Popchips placed ads in the VH1 mobile site promoting a sweepstakes to win a chance to meet singer Katy Perry that included an entry process that synced to a user's Facebook account (see story).

"Photo Effects enable popchips to insert their branded stickers into the natural photo editing flow of a number of photo sharing apps to offer users a way to make their photos more fun and personal," said Kevin Long, director of marketing at RadiumOne, San Francisco.

"When people add popchips stickers to their photos and share to social networks, popchips gains valuable earned media through the sharing and engagement that happens around that post and their brand," he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York