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If you don’t know what ‘atomisation’ of apps means well it’s worth getting to grips with it from here on in. Fjord, have cited app atomisation along with VR as the big trend of 2016. Basically it means apps can now work in tandem with each other. For example you can order an UBER or HAILO when you are using Google Maps – you don’t actually have to leave the maps application.

Our other all time favourite for this is KIIP which is a bit like the Uber example above except the implementation is a bit different. Basically if you are in an app which is KIIP enabled you can earn points and prizes from your favourite brands if you complete relevant tasks. For example if you are in a running app and an ad might pop up and say ‘get a free bottle of water or win prizes when you complete 5km’.

Walgreens are doing a version of this in a kind of Customer Marketing way where you can earn Walgreens loyalty points by completing actions within it’s customer’s apps. The example here is if you download the Roche Accu-Chek Connect application and complete healthy actions within the app the you can earn Walgreens loyalty points.

Popular fitness devices and apps such as GenieMD, HoMedics, LifeTrak, Lose It!, Misfit, Nudge, Omron Fitness and RunKeeper have also integrated the Balance Rewards API allowing users to automatically earn points for healthy activities like walking, running and biking.

What do points mean? Go on click here 

One of the best ways advertisers can create great Mobile Marketing experiences is to leverage existing owned channels like point of sale and packaging and do nice overlays. By going into the store or picking up the packaging consumers are effectively opted in to be communicated. Its also the perfect connection moment to communicate with them.

With that in mind McDonalds Sweden has turned their Happy Meal boxes into cardboard VR headsets and created Happy Goggles . Of course there’s a nice super size link to purchase effect where you have to actually buy the Happy Meal box, tear along the perforated lines and actually make up the goggles yourself ( the lenses are provided and have to drop your own smartphone of course as well as downloading the app!). It’s not abundantly clear in the video but it looks like people have to buy the special Happy Meal box complete with cardboard VR goggles.

It’s interactive on a number of levels and the only watch outs for us are that you might want t have a few nice, helpful sampling staff on hand to manage the eventual chaos that might occur if parents or kids can’t get the whole thing working.

If you don’t have the budget to do VR you can still do lots of nice things with mobile like text and win campaigns, scan and win, snap and win etc.

Here’s the McDonald Video

Are you a Mobile enthusiast with great attention to detail? A do-er who’s actively interested in tech, marketing and uses mobile technologies? Have you a curiosity and passion for how mobile can deliver for business and brands via utility, rewards and brand experiences. If so..Email Donald@Return2Sender.ie

Focus On A Sustainable Messaging Strategy Before You Develop Your Mobile App

Since the birth of SMS, one of the things that us mobile agencies have had to do is work within the laws of constraint. Limited bandwidth, screen size, character length, battery life, on the go, privacy concerns, etc. have all imposed restrictions on mobile creative. Not to mention budgets!

But, this is actually a good thing because it forces the agency to become much more rigorous in how you develop your mobile proposition. It acts as a threshing machine separating the chaff from the wheat. It cuts to the content.

According to Jacob Nielsen headlines should be traditionally no more than 5 words.

Saatchi & Saatchi had their ‘brutal simplicity of thought’ (from Bertrand Russell’s Happiness where happiness can only be achieved by the painful necessity of thought). Simple messages enter the brain faster.

Brevity, the soul of wit, can be applied to your app strategy.

If you stress test your content and check if it would work as a standalone set of recurring app notifications (or even text messages) then you’ve got something enduring to build a relationship on. Once you’ve nailed that, you can then broaden your app proposition out into pictures, words, animation, games etc.

You can also extend your snack-able content to other bite sized platforms ( Twitter, WhatsApp TBC, SMS, FB Messenger TBC, We Chat etc).

Now granted, there are those killer apps that simply would not work without a rich immersive interface but for many companies who are looking to develop an app where they build something useful to stay top of mind with their customers this works well and it shouldn’t cost the earth to build, test, learn and then enhance with more budget.

This approach is really important as apps become less destinations people go to on their phones and more as widget type beach-heads for (contextual) rewards, and useful info on the go. — especially on iOS 9 and beyond.

So the next time you’re developing your app (assuming of course you’ve got content people actually want) start with ‘would people like my app if it could only pop up now and again with 5 words’ ? Or if our app budget got slashed could it exist as an occasional text message?