We regularly read about big innovations that seem to be shaking the marketing world. "Marketing is dead", "Advertising is useless", "The era of traditional marketing is over" and so on. Big announcements that certainly have an effect and make us think.
It is true that internet, social media, smart phones and tablets are getting more and more important in everyday life and therefore in the communication plans of companies. But the question is, as usual, to identify the categories to approach and how.
Just think about the latest fashion of developing branded smartphone and tablet applications (the so-called apps).
Many brands spent a lot of time and money to develop them. Nowadays almost all famous brands have their own app. This idea has become popular even in the produce world: recently Fratelli Orsero, Marlene and many others launched their own apps.
The problem though is that it is difficult to obtain substantial returns from this kind of investment.
Why? If you have an Iphone, just visit your Apple store. How many apps are there? How many have you already downloaded on your phone? And how many times have you used them?
The truth is that there are thousands of apps and therefore it is very difficult to create something original - almost everything can be found in the Apple store. For example, if you search for "recipes", there are 466 apps, most of which are free. What hope does a new app have? In practice, the majority of the apps are downloaded by few people who use them maybe once or twice and then forget about them.
It is difficult to be successful and so, before jumping into it, think about it. In the majority of the cases, it is better to use the budget for something less fashionable but which guarantees better returns.
For further information:
Maurizio Pisani
maurizio@pisanifm.it
www.pisanifm.it