Socialmediaworx

I’ve been writing more and more about branded utilities, and it’s a marketing strategy our team at Viget Labs continues to embrace. David Armano’s latest AdWeek article makes one of the best cases for building a web app as your digital marketing strategy I’ve read:

Well, for starters, unlike my experience on Grainger, many advertisers aren’t focused on building the digital applications that people want to use; they’re focused on somehow cramming marketing into them. Some kid comes up with the next YouTube, Facebook or mobile platform, and most advertisers want to figure out how to market on it. Instead of designing and developing useful applications that could give brands the opportunity to insert themselves meaningfully into our lives, we get cutesy but useless “Sprite Sips” on Facebook, ubiquitous banners in all shapes and sizes and microsites that you won’t likely return to. And I’m talking about digital advertising — never mind traditional.

As agencies and our clients strive to add value to the lives of the average consumer, user and active participant, it’s helpful to think about how we can do this in a framework I like to call the “Three U’s of Advertising in the Application Economy.” They are:

1) Usefulness. Any experience is useful when it’s meaningful and serves a purpose.

2) Utility. Utility is interaction that delights us in some way.

3) Ubiquity. We are living in a fragmented world with what seems like infinite touch points available to us.

But don’t take my word for it. You won’t want to miss reading the rest of the article here.