WebProNews

Tag: Brand Recognition

  • Branded Apps Lead to More Site Visits [Research Findings]

    If you’re in the marketing business the findings of this next research study are going to make a lot of sense to you. ABI Research, a company focused on technology in marketing,performed a study in December of last year of about 2000 mobile device users. About half of those users were smartphone owners.

    The piece of the puzzle we are looking at right now has to do only with those smartphone owners. The study titled, “Mobile Shopping and the Mobile Wallet“, found that more than 45% of the users downloaded a branded app, and that of those who downloaded them, over 40% were more likely revisit the site and buy more products.

    Sound a bit confusing? Simply put, if you have my app, you are 40% more likely to buy my products if you’ve purchased from me in the past. If the sample size is in anyway similar to the real population that means almost 25% of American mobile users are persuaded to buy more branded products because of a branded app. I would say that’s a powerful relationship.

    Mark Beccue, a senior analyst on the study comments on the results:

    “These are overwhelmingly positive numbers,”

    “They are so compelling that if retailers do not have a smartphone app strategy in place right now they are in danger of being left behind by their competitors.”

    “Clearly consumers are using retailer-branded apps as an engagement tool. Once a retailer can capture a consumer with one, there is a real opportunity to leverage smartphone apps to enhance customer service, deliver richer, more relevant product information in real time, shorten checkout lines, and more,”

    Here’s another interesting tidbit from the study; people who have already downloaded a branded app are almost 38% more likely to download another one. Sounds a bit like an addiction. I guess the moral of the story here is don’t get addicted, but also, if you’re in the sales business, branded apps are a must-have.

  • Apple May Change the English Language With the IPad

    Did you know that aspirin was once a brand name? So was heroin, the escalator, thermos, yo-yo, and the zipper. All were new products at one time or another, and all of them became so engrained in American culture and our collective lexicon that they were deemed too generic to be referred to as brands anymore.

    Branding experts are saying Apple may be in the same boat with the iPad. The product has come to represent the epitome of the tablet PC. So much so, that people may refer to any similar product as an iPad from here on out.

    Brands fight for this kind of recognition all the time, and it comes with both good and bad consequences. Brand recognition is the obvious plus. Most brands would kill to become a household name like Apple, or the iPad. But the drawback is brand deterioration. With the name iPad being used for every tablet computer, customers can develop negative connotations about it, simply by the name being associated with a less quality product.

    It’s a Catch-22 (Ironically, most people use that term without thinking of the book by Joseph Heller). Brands want to be a household name, but they don’t want to become so popular that the name loses all association to the company. How often do you ask someone for a Band-Aid and immediately think of Johnson & Johnson? Or ask someone for a Kleenex and think of Kimberly-Clark? Both of these names are trademarked, but rarely do they carry any significance for the company they represent when spoken about in daily life.

    And there is really no way of stopping it. Once a term catches on, you cannot control its growth. You can’t make people stop using iPad to describe other tablets.

    The biggest problem for these companies, Apple included, is if the name becomes so commonly used that they legally lose the trademark. At that point, any company can use the name as they please, on packaging, advertising, anything.

    Bayer lost the name for aspirin in the 20’s. B.F. Goodrich sued, and lost, to protect its trademark “zipper” around the same time. Otis Elevator Co. lost “escalator in 1950. Thermos LLC lost “thermos” in 1963. Imagine that, losing the branding of your company in the process.

    Some companies love the attention this kind of generic name use brings about. Experts say Google has greatly benefitted from people saying they are going to “Google something” when referring to conducting a web search. And it is uncommon for someone to say they are going to Google something, and then get on Yahoo or Bing.

    For good or bad, it seems that Apple is going to have to deal with this kind of recognition. So far they have done so without losing their brand. iPod is commonly used when referring to an MP3 player of another origin, and most people readily associate iPod with Apple. The company has yet to encounter legal troubles over the iPad name (in America anyway) and the case in China does not involve the generic use of the word. So far they have continued to dominate the tablet market, accounting for 73% of the estimated 64 billion sold worldwide, and with new and more popular versions coming out each year, it doesn’t like like that’s going to change.

  • Google+ Shares Daria Musk: Hangout Success Story

    If you’ve got something to share and you want to reach a wide network of people Google+ might be for you. Today Google shared on their blog the story of Daria Musk, a young musical performer who made her dreams come true using Google+ hangouts.

    Daria had a dream of reaching out to people with her music and playing in front of large crowds. Using Google+ Hangouts she was able to advertise shows and bring people together to watch them. Before she could even recognize the power of this type of social networking she was playing to huge global crowds.

    Daria comments on what she was thinking about when she decided to try Google+:

    “I was dreaming maybe there’s this wider world that I can sing for,”

    “Maybe my people are out there somewhere.”

    “Right now if you get on Google+ and you show that you’re doing something remarkable, they’ll notice you,”

    Take a look at her video:

    Daria included some advice about how to have success with Hangouts on the blog. Here’s what she recommends:

    * Announce the Hangout: Be excited! Hang a virtual poster on your stream and tell users what you’ll be doing or discussing.

    * Encourage participants: If you’ve noticed great comments, invite those users directly to get a lively discussion going.

    * Follow up: After the Hangout, post a summary on your stream. What happened? What was discussed? What will you do with what you learned?

    This is simple advice that can really go a long way to get people interested in what you’re promoting whether it is yourself or a particular product/service. What she’s doing would work for many different applications. This something Google provides for free so users should really take advantage of it.

    As of the 13th of this month Daria reached a milestone with Google+, she has one million followers. It took her about eight months to reach this point, and if you are wondering if it furthered her career, it certainly did.

    After some searching I found Daria featured on Taylor Guitars website. Taylor Guitars is a huge manufacturer and distributor of guitars worldwide. Being featured on their site is a big deal and if she were to secure some type of endorsement deal in the future, it could bring her a lot of recognition.

    Check out the video Taylor Guitars has of Daria on their website:

    Seems like she’s doing pretty good to me, this was a great story for Google to feature on their new social networking platform. It definitely opens up my mind two the Google+ experience.