Smartphone apps are a ‘Gamechanger for Brands’, wrote the English Direct Marketing Association recently. There is hardly a big brand that doesn’t have at least one mobile application that literally puts the brand in the hands of consumers. Here are four interesting case studies from completely different sectors and with completely different strategic approaches. Solely or jointly, the attempt is to offer consumers real-time additional benefit or entertainment value and by doing so encouraging them to become regular users:

• Barclay Card: Waterslide Extreme
  Success Factor: Brand awareness
  Sector: Finance
  Launch: July 2009 / Downloads: > 10 Million (free)

Based on the famous Waterslide TV campaign, Barclays developed a racing game that has since generated more than 10 million downloads. According to company information, this game is downloaded by iPhone and iPod Touch users approximately 40,000 times a day. If you consider the 10 million downloads with an average game time of 2.5 minutes and four sessions per player, this corresponds to an average brand engagement of 100 million minutes. In this case, the brand awareness factor is extremely high.

• Kraft: iFood Assistant
  Success factor: Brand engagement
  Sector: Food
  Launch: November 2008 / 99 cents a download

This app is convincing with more than 7,000 recipes to cook by yourself, supported by two websites. But to charge money for it? Kraft answered this key question ‘yes’ and charges 99 cents a download, achieving a higher brand value and enabling In-App-Commerce. A free demo version is available.

• PizzaHut
  Success factor: Mobile Ordering
  Sector: Fast Food
  Launch: July 2009 / Downloads: > 100,000 in the first two weeks (free)

This app offers an original form of mobile ordering, in which the user gets little games to make his own pizza. In three months, the company made more than US$1 million through the application. More info, including a demo video, available here.

• Benjamin Moore: Ben Colour Capture App
  Success factor: App Marketing
  Sector: Paint manufacturer
  Launch: May 2009 / Downloads: >50,000 (Oct. 09) (free)

With this app, paint manufacturer Benjamin Moore underlines its core competency: Take a photo of any picture and the colours can be immediately matched and saved with the Moore colour system. Moore himself attributes the success of this app to the sophisticated app marketing that accompanied its launch.

Finally, there are some insights into a market that, according to the German marketing journal “absatzwirtschaft”, is developing into a mobile mass market, reaching millions of people worldwide. Current figures from IT consulting company Gartner demonstrate the potential: Downloads from application stores will exceed €4.5 billion in 2010 (87% are free). Consumers will spend around US$6.7 billion on this. Advertising revenues are estimated at US$0.6 billion. The analysts forecast another rapid increase for 2013, when downloads will exceed 21 billion.

One thing is certain, mobile Internet via mobile phone will decisively shape tomorrow’s world of communication. And brands in particular will profit from using apps to create a modern ‘brand universe’ with as many touch points as possible.