Your Brand does not Stop at the App Store

I was at the airport the other day when I almost ran into a ship…not a real one luckily as this would have been a strong indication that I took a wrong left somewhere down the road. The ship I am referring to was a large piece of wooden merchandise from spiced rum brand Captain Morgan. It was loaded with the brand’s high-proof goods in the airport’s duty-free area.

The pirate ship is an excellent example of how Captain Morgan manages to integrate its brand artifacts throughout all of its touchpoints creating a truly integrated marketing strategy.

Captain Morgan’s brand experience: Consistency through all consumer touchpoints.

The goal behind this strategy is clear: Resonating with customers to create a favorable attitude towards the brand which encourages them to pick up the product frequently and over the competition.

Learning from the Offline World

For apps the app store page is the digital equivalent of the rum bottle filled pirate ship — It is the last touchpoint between a customer and the product. Consequently, the same attention should be spend on making the app store entry part of your brand’s strategy. The benefits of doing so are substantial as the app store page is one of the high impact areas in App Store Optimization (ASO). Improving on the storeview-to-download-conversion could mean a strong uplift in overall downloads. I wrote a post giving a more detailed overview over the opportunities in ASO here:

More than just ranking — The different stages of App Store Optimization

Putting some Brand in the App Store

There are already some good examples out there where brands use the app store to not just communicate about product benefits but take an effort to transport brand identity in their communication as well.

Collection of airbnb store material — App Store, Play Store, Play Store Video (in that order)

Airbnb does so by greeting the potential new iOS user with a well-chosen image of a women enjoying her stay in a cosy Parisian apartment with the Eifel Tower in sight. Also, the travel marketplace is one of the lucky few who get an additional branding banner on top of their app store entry — a strong sign that Apple itself started to realize the importance of branding in the decision making process for downloading an app. On Google Play the brand’s store entry is supported by an animated video promoting the ability to go wherever you want without missing the feeling of belonging through the unique host experience. In this video the airbnb app is never shown once.

With its app store entries, the company goes way beyond merely presenting the features of its app. The consumer’s desire to experience foreign places in a familiar environment is in the center of the communication. By doing so, a coherent and reassuring brand experience, which is known from the brand’s desktop and offline communication, continues in the app store.

Not all brands focus on delivering brand identity over functionality — two examples

Not too many companies put this much attention to their app store material. For the most, communication is limited to the mere product feature level with some polished screenshots for additional support at best. While this approach might work well for introducing the product and its capabilities, it falls short on leveraging a brand’s image when the user is facing the decision on wether to give away some of the scarce hard drive storage for your product.

As the examples above mostly focus on the visual elements of a store entry, it is important to mention that the description text is also a crucial element in representing your brand. Visitors could be thrown off by a misalignment between brand-speak and app store text. For instance, a Captain Morgan app would hopefully great its app store visitors with a fair amount of pirate slang instead of simply listing the app’s features.

Integrated App Store Marketing for the win

Especially in the ever more competitive app store world integrating your app with your brand strategy can be highly beneficial to convert store visitors into users. Speaking to a user’s desires and aspirations which your brand seeks to fulfill can be a far more powerful trigger than merely focusing on communicating your app’s latest feature.

Or, in the words of marketing expert David Arnold:

“Brand strategy is the process whereby the offer is positioned in the consumer’s mind to produce a perception of advantage.” — David Arnold, 1992

…make sure to use your brand to make your app store offering feel advantageous as well!