Five things you need to know about effective branding through mobile apps

1. Brand apps are essential in mobile marketing

With the inspiration from a number of globally successful brand apps that have drawn extensive public attention, as well as the increasing peer pressure from early innovators, major brands have realized that apps have become one of the essential platforms to lift brand awareness, reach target consumers and even sell products.

By November 2011, 91 per cent of the 2011 Interbrand Top 100 brands had developed their own apps, most of which are from the consumer electronics, automobile, business service and financial service industries. Among brands who have built their own apps, 86 per cent of them chose iPhone, 66 per cent and 59 per cent chose iPad and Android respectively.

2.  Brand apps attract more user attention than brand Weibo accounts

According to a March AdChina survey of more than 7000 users, more than 30.5 per cent of consumers are willing to be engaged with brands via brand apps, while less than 25 per cent follow brand Weibo accounts.

80 per cent of smartphone users have downloaded brand apps, and 23.2 per cent have downloaded more than 10 brand apps.

Users are most attracted to download brand apps by interesting games (43.8 per cent) or useful tools (37.2 per cent), or simply because they love the brands (23.1 per cent).

Among different categories, users are most interested in food/beverage, consumer electronics and apparel/beauty apps, and they hope to get product and promotion information from brand apps.

3. Brand apps need to be consumer-centric

More and more advertisers choose apps to tell their brand stories. Brand apps developed for existing consumers are expected to solve problems and provide product and brand information as needed. Brand apps that aim to discover and convert potential consumers need to present brand histories and convey the brand's spirit via attractive and entertaining interactions.

To maintain relationships with app users, brands need to pay great attention to the different scenarios in which the users will use the app and the way to communicate with users. Wisely leveraging the cool features of smartphones, including GPS, camera and speaker, will effectively improve the user experience.

Smooth integration of user experience and brand image is the foundation of a successful brand app design. Finding a good way to plant brand messages into the app without annoying consumers is the key.

4. Take an integrated approach for app distribution 

App distribution channels in China are extremely fragmented. With a large number of jail-broken phones and cracked apps available in China, there are various independent app download channels besides official app stores and markets, among which software websites and forums and WAP sites are most popular.

Promoting a brand app in China demands thorough consideration of app users' behaviour. Integrating advertising and advertorial channels, across PC and mobile Internet, in accordance with the brand app's positioning and features, is the right way to effectively promote brand apps in China.

5. Brand apps need continuous innovation with frontier technologies such as HTML5

With the rapid growth and standardization, HTML5 has been ready for developing cross-platform apps. The real estate of brands on mobile platform will be a combination of mobile sites, web apps and native apps.

Cloud technologies and social media are the hottest. Apps developed with cloud technologies can provide users with up-to-date information and interactions while significantly reducing operation cost. Cloud technologies also help to explore commercial value by obtaining deep understanding of users' behaviours.

Hardware technologies such as NFC are drawing more attention thanks to the fast upgrade of mobile devices. Manufacturers will put technologies required by the market into mass production, and thus push the development of apps with those new technologies forward.

In addition, mobile search, especially location based search, has soon become a daily need of mobile users. Apps that provide information and services based on user location will, therefore, be essential to people's lives.