afaqs! workshop: Leveraging apps for marketing

The workshop helped participants to understand the apps economy and how they can use mobile apps for branding and marketing.

afaqs! Digital Professionals Club organised a workshop, titled Apps for Brands, in Bengaluru on September 2.

Apps for Brands was conducted by Carlton D'Silva, creative director, Hungama Digital, Kunal Arora, head, digital, Hungama Digital, and Manish Mishra, country manager, Buzzcity. It aimed at educating participants -- from companies such as United Spirits, The Times of India, Telibrahma, Maa TV and Network18 -- about using mobile apps effectively for branding and marketing.

Arora initiated the workshop with a presentation to showcase the growing importance of apps in the digital space. He pointed out that about 15 billion apps were downloaded on mobiles in 2010, globally. According to Google's mobile ad network, 80 minutes is the average time spent on apps on the Apple iPhone and Android platforms every day (global estimation). He added that it is very important to understand the target audience before developing the app, and the branded app should serve a specific purpose.

Arora's presentation was followed by an interactive session, in which participants were divided into teams of four-five individuals; each team was asked to select a product category/brand and build (ideate and conceptualise) an app for it.

One of the teams, led by Vinod Reddy (regional head, business development, Eterno Infotech), conceptualised an app for an apparel brand like Raymond. While presenting the plan for the 'Raymond' app, Reddy said that the app will be aimed to boost the sales of fall/winter (designer) collections at Raymond flagship stores in metro cities, and will be targeted at upper middle-class consumers.

He explained, "The app will have sections such as 'virtual wear', which will allow the user to find out how he will look in a particular style of clothing, designed by top designers such as Manish Malhotra and Rohit Bal. Another feature, 'store locator', will help users to find out the nearest Raymond's outlet using the GPS facility available on his smartphone. Reddy's team won the prize for best 'app' development during the workshop.

Later, D'Silva showcased some case studies of branded apps to explain the type of apps a brand can create, and also shared some interesting tips on apps development.

For instance, he showed a video of an iPhone app by the US-based retail chain, Walmart, to explain the services app. The Walmart app, created in 2009, offered a special feature (for television buyers), which allowed users to take a picture of the space where they want to place/mount their TV set, and then determine the perfect TV size for the room. He also talked about the recently launched iPad app by the automobile company, Fiat, for its Fiat 500 brand. The app empowers users to design and personalise a Fiat 500 according to their requirement. Users can add graphics and even submit customised sketches of the car.

Mishra guided users about the distribution of apps. He suggested that brands and app developers should not rely only on Apple platforms to distribute their apps. Instead, they should explore other established app stores (like M.Djuzz.com and Getjar.com), which allow free distribution of apps to users.

He also pointed out that brands should build apps with a long-term vision rather than on campaign-to-campaign approach. "In case a brand builds an information-based app, the information offered by the app should be unique and ensure that there is no best-of-breed equivalent in the market for the particular information or service offered," Mishra said.

afaqs! Digital Professionals Club will organise similar workshops in Delhi and Mumbai soon.

The workshop was sponsored by Buzzcity.