Don’t Go Mobile Unless It’s Meaningful

This past Monday, I attended the Heartland Mobile Council’s conference called MobiU 2012. Leading up to the conference, I was nervous about going all alone and wondering if I would even learn anything useful. Well, now I realize how foolish I was in having these two thoughts.

First of all, I immediately made a friend while eating breakfast. She is a recruiter for Paladin and she has a work history in marketing. I met other interesting people, too, who told me about their jobs and backgrounds in marketing. The most interesting stories I heard were about problems people face in marketing each day. As someone who desires to transition into marketing, it is wise of me to take mental notes of future problems I may face.

Even with the prevalence of mobile marketing, the main theme of MobiU was that just because you can make an app or just because you have funding to make an app does not mean you should create an app for your product. Stephen Surman, the former Vice President of Digital Strategy at Anheuser-Busch, argued that companies should not create an app unless that app supports both the product’s brand and its customers. If the app will not add value to the customer’s life, if the app is not closely tied to the brand, or if the app has an expiration date, don’t make one!

For example, can any of you name which company was behind Elf Yourself:

If you cheated and clicked on the hyperlink, shame on you! But yes, Office Max was responsible for creating this application.  

Office Max has a stated mission of “Helping our customers do their best work.” Ironically, most of us used this application while at work and helped our coworkers cut out their faces in photographs in order to elf ourselves. Is this doing our best work? I don’t think so! Thus, is this app really applicable to Office Max? No. And did Office Max really do a great job at tying its brand to these elves and helping people remember its brand with Elf Yourself? No. This was therefore a poor investment (regardless of how much fun we had as dancing elves)! 

Zach West, Digital Strategist at Walgreens, talked about two Walgreen apps that truly are meaningful to customers. Walgreens created two very popular and very relevant apps – QuickPrints and Refill by Scan.

With QuickPrints, you can easily send pictures from Twitter, Facebook or from your camera phone straight to Walgreens. Walgreens will then show you which of its stores is the closest for you to order prints. That store will then send you a text message when your photos are ready for pick up.

Refill by Scan allows you to scan the barcode on your prescription and send in your refill order. Again, Walgreens will then tell you which store is the closest to you and will then text you when the prescription is ready.

A fellow classmate of ours, Darren, talked about this app during Week 1 of class. Darren appears to be a dedicated Walgreens customer who uses these apps because it adds value to his life. And as these apps add value to the lives of customers, Walgreens is further supporting its brand image. Unlike Office Max, Walgreens hit a hole in one!

So, if you are going to create an app, create one that customers find useful and want to incorporate into their everyday lives. Don’t use mobile marketing to talk at customers, but to further strengthen your brand and your relationship with those customers.