afaqs! Workshop: Decode potential of mobile apps for marketing

Apps for Brands aimed at creating awareness about the mobile apps landscape in India, and educating participants about how to use mobile apps effectively for marketing.

The second edition of the workshop, Apps for Brands, was organised by afaqs! on October 14 in Gurgaon. It aimed at creating awareness about the mobile apps landscape in India and educating participants about how to use mobile apps effectively for marketing, the types of apps one can create, and how to distribute apps.

Conducted by Madan Sanglikar, principal partner, Invention, Mindshare India, Anurag Singh, co-founder, MobiMasta, and Manish Mishra, country manager, BuzzCity, the workshop involved participants from Max New York Life, Tata Communications, Dish TV, WWF, Tata Docomo, and Tribal Fusion.

Sanglikar started the workshop with a quiz round to test the knowledge and awareness levels of the participants. About 10 true or false questions were asked by Sanglikar. For instance, he asked if it was true that the top smartphone brand that Indians use to access websites is the BlackBerry, and if mobile web users are more than PC web users; he also asked if it was true that Indians download 1,000 paid games daily.

Singh then explained the apps landscape to participants. He said that Apple has the largest number of apps published so far, compared to Android and BlackBerry. He added that 'games' is the most popular content category in the apps space, globally. About 64 per cent of apps downloaded belong to 'games' category, every month. Other prominent apps categories include weather, social networking, music, and news.

Talking about the India perspective, Singh said, "More than 50 million apps are downloaded every month in India." He showcased some facts from Nokia's recent apps study, 'In pursuit of App-iness', and said, "About 77 per cent of smartphone users in India have 30 apps on their phones." In India, the most popular category of apps is social networking, followed by music, business, utility, and games.

After the 'apps landscape' session, Sanglikar conducted a role play session to explain the role that apps can play in the marketing mix. He assigned some roles like 'teenage girl', 'farmer', and 'CEO' to participants, and asked them to come up with ideas about the types of apps they would like to have for that particular target group. Based on ideas generated during the session, Sanglikar explained the role apps can play in the marketing mix.

After this session, Singh showcased various national and international case studies to highlight the types of apps brands are creating these days. Singh also talked about the best practices and the 'do's and don'ts' of creating apps. He advised participants that they should create apps which are useful and serve a special purpose, or fulfil a need. "A good application should capture a natural purchasing/consumption process," Singh said.

Mishra talked about the ways of distribution of apps. He showcased various apps stores, either linked to mobile operating system owners (Apple, Android, Nokia and BlackBerry), or by independent companies like GetJar, Djuzz and Mobango, which can be used for distribution of apps.

Talking about the ways to fight clutter in the apps distribution space, he advised participants to ensure cross-media integration to make apps easily discoverable, and asked them to target apps only through specific devices.

The last session at the workshop was an assignment, in which the participants were divided into teams of four-five individuals. Each team was assigned a brief to build (ideate and conceptualise) an app. The team which included Anvita Singh (WWF), Rishabh Sharma (Dish TV), Kanika Nanda (Tribal Fusion), Trishna (Vserv) and Abhishek Shahdeo (Yahoo!), won the assignment session. They presented an idea on an app for a media company.

The first edition of the workshop was held in Bengaluru on September 2. afaqs! will organise a similar workshop in Mumbai as well.

Apps for Brands was sponsored by BuzzCity.