Apparently not, according to some recent flutterings in the marketing blogosphere, where marketeers (and by implication, their agency helpmeets) have been chided ever-so-gently (‘incompetence or insanity’ the choicest of the insults used) about their reluctance to invest in the unglamorous tasks that the mobile age demands of brands (optimising mobile sites, tinkering with mobile search terms, yada yada yada) as opposed to being distracted by the shiny shiny new gewgaws that are smartphone apps, used by, dammit, 8% fewer people talked to in the survey in question.
You can perhaps tell what I think of such hand-wringing dressed up as well-meaning advice.
While of course we need to make sure our brands are as good, relevant and useful as they can be wherever someone encounters them, to say that the industry is in a daze over apps is somewhat to miss the weald for the sapling.
Since we are in the business of trading numbers, perhaps I can point to Ofcom’s latest communications market report, which shows that 47% of teenagers now own a smartphone. I would humbly suggest that the mobile experience for this group of wallets, sorry I meant the future of our society, is a hell of a lot less important than the apps that they can get, play about with, show off to their mates.
I am reminded of those well-meaning, chin-stroking academics, who when first presented with the television, were afraid that people might no longer concentrate on the words as they used to when listening to their radiograms.
A reasonable point. But still, an irrelevant one.
