A cause for celebration

My life changed today. This day, July 11th, 2008. It’s a momentous occasion, an occasion I plan to celebrate for years to come. But like any good occasion, it needs a name. I’m going to call this glorious day “iP app Day”.

You may be asking yourself, “What is iP App Day?” and, “Why, even if I did know what this mysterious day stood for, would I celebrate it?”

Well, iP App Day is short for iPhone Application Day. It’s the day that the first iPhone applications became available to us common people, and it’s a day that I believe will change the marketing forever.

Certainly there have been major advances in phone marketing technologies – but I believe none are remotely as important as this one. Now it’s easier than ever to literally be within one touch of a finger to your customers.

iPhone users can now log into the iTunes store and download custom applications for their phone from such categories as Business, Education, Lifestyle, News, Social Networking, and so on. Now, do not be confused, I am not celebrating the basic unbranded applications that are sprinkled around the application store. What I am celebrating are the fantastic branded applications that will put our client’s brands literally in the palms of the customer’s hands.

Doing a cursory search around the “store”, I see brands like EBAY, Travelocity, Twitter, FaceBook, SalesForce, Frommer’s, and the MLB – I’m sure with hundreds of brands to follow. I stopped in at the Travelocity store, where I found a handy tool to pick up. It was the Travelocity Gnome app. I said to myself, “What the heck. I’ll throw him on my phone.” After all, he was free!

Besides, he’s handy to have on my phone. I don’t travel a lot, but I could see how it would be cool to be able to check flight times on the go, book a flight, or check security wait times. I could see how many of these applications could be handy… but I don’t think that’s the whole point.

I’ve looked at my phone now a few times in the past couple hours and every time I see that welcome screen, there it is, the Travelocity app staring me in the face – and that, I think, is the point. Sure it will lead to increased bookings, etc., etc., but every time I see that app there, it’s just a little more brand enforcement. It’s benignly advertising to me… “Travelocity, Travelocity, Travelocity”. Who do you think I’m going to think of first the next time I have to book a trip?

All that aside, I can see amazing opportunities on the horizon. How long will it be before Pizza Hut offers an iPhone application to order pizza at the touch of a button (With the new GPS functionality of the phone, you likely won’t have to even type in the delivery address - the phone will send all of that information for you), or Wal-Mart has their weekly coupon book available as an application.

I could go on and on, but do I really need to provide any more reasons why we should all be celebrating “iP App Day”? Let’s break out the balloons!

Posted by Brandon

12:50 PM 0 comments

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