Iphone is growing increasingly popular as an brand advertising medium.
There are two new reports this week about how to use Apple’s (AAPL) App Store as a marketing medium.
The first, in today’s Wall Street Journal, cites several success stories, including Zippo’s virtual lighter and Lions Gate’s (LGF) Stun-O-Matic. The second, a Forrester Research report, warns would-be iPhone marketers about some of the pitfalls.
The two reports agree about one thing: Madison Avenue has latched onto what it believes is a hot new medium. The total addressable market for branded apps, according to Apple, is more than 37 million iPhones and iPod touches — a number that’s apparently getting too large for brand managers to ignore.
“A mobile application frenzy has seized the wireless industry and has even spread to brands not normally associated with mobile,” writes Forrester’s Neil Strother in a paper entitled “Is An iPhone App Right For You?”
The Journal’s answer to that question is a resounding “Yes!” According to Yukari Iwatani Kane’s piece, the apps cost as little as $12,000 to develop and can yield huge rewards in terms of brand awareness. Zippo’s virtual lighter app (flick the iPhone to light the flame) has been downloaded more than 3 million times and waved at countless rock concert finales. Lion Gate’s Stun-O-Matic, a promo for its new action movie “Crank: High Voltage,” yielded 2 million downloads and generated 800,000 trailer views.
In a related news, Medialets, an iphone ad network, raised $4M VC funding. This is not so surprising. Sandhill road has taken to the iphone long time ago.