26
2010
The Newest App: More
In the race to have the latest shiny object, chasing cool has become the siren song of the tech/marketing moment.
And at this moment, it’s cool to have your own branded, mobile/portable app. We can’t go a day without a large B2B or B2C company producing an app or a tech company picking sides in the Android or Apple OS “war.”
Every. Single. Day.
But because of competitive envy or sheer bravado, so many company branded mobile apps that get produced are half-baked or woefully missing the point. That doesn’t mean app development is dead, it’s just that marketers need to stop the assembly line.
Branded mobile apps must deliver a consistent brand message and experience that understands the consumer. For the owner/creator, the app must provide useful feedback and insight (data).
I recently came across a hospital system promoting a mobile app that helps patients find the nearest emergency room with the shortest wait time. On the surface, it achieves cool, but is also functional. It provides a service that ER-goers wouldn’t have otherwise, and the hospital system (in theory) can at least get some usage and/or geographic statistics from users.
In this instance, the app crossed the chasm from cool to useful.
To make the leap, there must be substance. Anyone can build an app these days. Google’s announcement that we all can build our own Android app (We are all developers?), proved that. The publicity you could potentially receive from telling the press “LOOK AT ME, I HAVE AN APP!” is running on fumes. At one point, it didn’t matter what type of app companies came out with, if you were the first baby bottling company from Louisville to have a branded app, that was enough.
No more.
Anything in marketing worth a dime must provide value, to both sides. No matter how cool.
