Here’s a fascinating example of building demand for your future consumers through play - the Toyota Backseat Driver. It’s a smartphone application that allows you to drive a virtual car while riding in a real car - and the virtual ride is linked by GPS to your actual driving route, including the passing of virtual landmarks. Playing the game earns you points to customize your virtual car.
It’s some fun creative work from Party in Japan
In case you’ve been living under a rock, Facebook rolled out some changes to user’s profiles earlier this month, including a snazzy new band of photos across the top of most people’s profile pages.
This naturally inspired some people to find novel ways to express themselves using the ‘canvas’ at the top of their newsfeed, including (famously) Alexandre Oudin. After a few more days, there were sites popping up everywhere to do this to your profile in a few easy steps (Photo Magic, Oudinizer, Profile Maker, etc.).
Impressively, Schweppes acted quickly to get a developer to create a Schweppes Profile App on Facebook, as explained with the following video:
I like that they managed to turn around the app so fast, and keep the entire experience relatively simple. My questions are:
1. This seems to be an activity that most people might enjoy, and I wonder if Facebook considered making the functionality native. To be honest, the process is still a little complicated, due to the tagging requirements, and Facebook could get around these elegantly.
2. I think the resulting photo could have carried at least a nominal amount of branding - maybe even flirt with a facet of the product? What about making you in your photo engage with the product in some way?
Although here’s a good example of what you should probably not do:
3. When these mercurial changes occur on Facebook, I wonder if there is really any benefit to the ‘first out’ application. The app seemed to have some loading troubles a few times when I was using it. Stability should be pretty high on the list of requirements, one would think.
There are several good articles out now about the race to create applications (apps) for mobile phones, with the iPhone leading the charge for most agencies in the rush to create branded applications.
Ad Age: Insisting on an iPhone App? Not So Fast
Media Renaissance@mediablog.com: Going Ape over iphone apps: will the trend last?
These articles all tend to point to the somewhat obvious conclusion that apps don’t kill people, short-sighted marketing plans do. In other words, too many marketers skip the step of making sure that their app has a reason for being before setting it loose upon the world and expecting to be on everyone’s phone tomorrow.
I think the outcry is a little exaggerated (after all we’ve really only started to see examples of obvious app abuse - there likely will be much more), but there are some basic considerations that do need to be put in context to have a successful trial of app technology. For the most part, what we are seeing is still people testing the waters, given the lower penetration of the types of phones that run apps. But the articles are dead-on about one thing - there are many more coming. In a few years every phone will be app-capable, and campaigns without an app will get scoffed out of the room. <shudder> Yes, get ready for that to be added to the checklist, kids.
The Ad Age article at least has a smart collection of 5 reasons you might want an app:
- Engagement 101. If done right, an app is an opportunity to deeply involve the consumer and a way to extend dialogue after a campaign has ended.
- It can raise brand loyalty. The more times consumers interact with a brand, the greater the chances they will gravitate toward it when they’re ready to buy.
- You’ll be ready when the app market really explodes. Within five years, In-Stat expects handset makers to ship a total of more than 100 million units that are app-compatible, so now is the time to gain some experience.
- It’s where the eyeballs are. The numbers are compelling: some 800 million downloads from the iPhone App Store.
- IPhoners have great demographics. Their income specifically makes them a very desirable target, and they’re ravenous multimedia users. According to AdMob, iPhone generates half the smartphone traffic in the U.S.
As we covered in TechCheck last year, mobile applications are going to keep exploding, and first movers will generally have the advantage, especially if they really focus on creating smart value for the user, and make sure that the use of the app resonates with their Brand. Our opinion and recommendations to clients remain rooted in human behavior: what we do must be relevant for the person, feel like the Brand, and have a clear reason for being. (I’m not sure how the iFart app rates on these items, but it’s funny as hell. For about a week.)
Wired Magazine reports on 2 competing applications for the iPhone which bring a completely new use for mobile phones to the table. A tool for measuring car performance like speed, cornering and brake load to name a few. With car fanatics always being about customization and getting nitty gritty data, this could be a killer app.
Also, without wanting to spoil the fun, one measurement I could see being added is how much CO2 your make and model puts out to get to 60mph in 5.6 seconds?
What we will definitely see is a continuing trend (that started with the iPod) of more mobile applications and devices in cars, and manufacture’s anticipated response by building the necessary cradles for them.
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