Embrace the marketing opportunity for local phone apps

January 20, 2009

Raj Choudhury is vice president of digital services at Engauge Digital

By Raj Choudhury

Go to any gadget blog for a top 10 list of cool and popular apps and you will find a plethora of games mentioned or tools praised for enhancing mobile phone users' connection with their social network.

With more than 3.3 billion wireless phones in use worldwide compared with 1 billion PCs, mobile is surging ahead as the first screen of choice for seeking entertainment and information.

As users customize their Web-enabled phones with free or inexpensive software, an enormous potential for transformational marketing is developing -- one that will enable brands to meaningfully follow their target consumers no matter where they are through what is becoming their preferred medium.

Smartphones are creating new ways for consumers to interact. They can turn their iPhone into a light saber thanks to sound effects provided by the "Star Wars Unleashed" app. Or they can convert their BlackBerry and G1 devices into a social compass through a Loopt map that shows if any of their friends are nearby.

But marketers must understand that mobile users are not seeking out brands with their phones. So it's a safe bet that they are not looking for banner ads and other disruptive messages.

If marketers are going to successfully use mobile, their brand needs to fit into the lives of users by providing entertainment or an experience that enhances their lives.

This task is doable thanks to the growing popularity of phones with GPS functionality, which in turn is opening opportunities for location-based apps.

For example, mobile users can download an app created by the Weather Channel to track real-time weather conditions at local landmarks such as their child's soccer field or the Little League park.

J. C. Penney roused shoppers out of bed on Black Friday with a wakeup call to their mobile phones.

Kraft Foods' iFood Assistant app provides recipes, how-to-videos, a shopping list for ingredients and a map of nearby grocery stores offering sales and coupons.

Marketers are only scratching the surface of proximity-based applications. Yet consumers already are deep in downloading apps.

Also, last year more adult mobile phone users compared with the previous year used their handsets to search for local products and services, movie listings and information about bars and restaurants, according to a Kelsey Group survey released last December.

So the future is here.

Already, McDonald's partnered with Cellfire to deliver mobile coupons for free ice coffee to consumers in Utah, Wyoming and Nevada.

Pizza Hut and Papa John's are moving along with store technology that will accept orders from mobile Web and texting.

Starbucks has been telling coffee lovers since 2007 with the Starbucks Mobile Locater where to find stores when they are far from home.

Mobile marketing is evolving into more than just text alerts, banner ads and video commercials adapted for the small screen.

The combination of the mobile phone and location-based apps is emerging into a call for direct response by consumers. Give people a useful app, and they will keep interacting with the brand.

This connection can lead to what brand stewards covet -- a dialogue with the mobile phone users which can be measured by marketers who are under pressure to trace return on investment for advertising spending.

The mobile phone is not merely a tiny, portable billboard. Treated right, it can be a new customer acquisition channel.

Raj Choudhury is vice president of digital services at Engauge Digital, a marketing services agency in Columbus, OH. Reach him at