In a new regular column, WeatherBug's Andy Jedynak lays out the value proposition for desktop applications and how they can benefit your brand.
Technology drives choice. Choice drives change. And like never before, things are changing fast. Unlike a few short years ago, we now feel cut off without email and internet access. We're lost without a mobile phone. Few foresaw how the rise of the web would bring immense changes in how we conduct their lives.
As marketers, we rely more and more on the internet to meet people where they are and transmit our value proposition. In fact, for many of us, our entire businesses are folded around the web, and we congratulate ourselves for adapting to the internet economy. But just because we have made these strides, that doesn't mean that the internet economy has stopped evolving. On the contrary, the internet's evolution is accelerating, and that acceleration is both driving consumer choice and forcing us to keep pace.
The best example: people increasingly prefer desktop applications over websites. It's a sea change that many have missed. Eighteen months ago, Nielsen//NetRatings announced that 75 percent of people who access the internet via the web also do so via desktop applications: instant messengers, media players, weather/alerting software and other great new services that pass by the web altogether, like iTunes. A year ago this month, comScore Media Metrix reported that the top three internet news and information properties were applications (they were: AIM, WeatherBug, and AOL Proprietary News).
If you had placed an ad buy on news and information websites alone, you would have missed more than half of the total internet audience that consumes News and Information.
Desktop applications are no mystery. Just like a website, they access the internet to get current information, but are customized and fine-tuned for a specific purpose. They use the immense processing power of the PC to refine and improve the experience beyond the capability of a remotely-served website.
Most people see Microsoft Outlook as far more convenient and functional as an email/calendaring/contact tool than a web-based email tool like Hotmail. Outlook is a desktop application. Hotmail is a website. Examine the two, and most will agree: desktop apps are phenomenally more powerful than websites.
Looking back, there was a day less than twenty years ago when all software was served from a mainframe computer to a terminal. The terminal itself had no real ability to compute -- it simply received input from a keyboard and gave output on a monitor. Then came PCs with their own onboard software that made the computing experience far more convenient and powerful. That's when the mainstream computing age truly began. When you think of it, a website is like that old remotely served software of the mid 1980s.
Desktop applications are the next stage in the internet revolution: custom-tuned software that performs the task at hand more efficiently and comfortably, and with far more efficient use of bandwidth. This powerful advantage has caused desktop applications to take off.
As marketers, we need to identify that where technology goes, people follow. At a recent iMedia Summit, AOL's CEO Jonathan Miller announced AOL's intent to make sure ad avails on its desktop applications would follow standard online ad formats. Many other providers of desktop applications have already taken that path, and the desktop application segment is more than ready to meet advertiser needs.
Since we need to meet people where they are in order to persuade them to purchase our products and services, the desktop application should be a standard part of every online media buy. Besides representing a huge swath of the internet population, it's also a remarkably loyal environment for your brand.
Desktop applications and branding
If you're anything like me, often you find yourself walking around humming the same tune all day without even realizing it. If I were a betting man, my gut would say that it likely was the very first song you heard in the morning. It could have been an ad jingle. Regardless, it came to you probably when you were doing something else and just stuck.
Wouldn't it be great if your brand's ad message could maintain the same share of mind throughout the day? The secret is in grabbing the critical first click of the day. One way to do that is with an internet application that lives right on the desktop.
Why the desktop? The answer is the first click. People are creatures of habit. Their media habits don't change drastically. They like to stay loyal to the same local TV news channel or visit the same websites for their information fix day in and day out.
Some of these consumers are downloading desktop applications to get faster access to the information that's most relevant to their needs. The application is the first thing they click when they turn on their computers in the morning. These folks are a prime target. They're a marketer's dream come true because they're more loyal than web surfers.
Now let's go back to the song and what is happening when it "sticks" to the consumer. It is most likely the first touch, the most sticky touch, the touch that stays with the consumer all day.
In order to deliver this powerful touch WeatherBug looked to a desktop application as one of the ad platforms we offer our advertisers.
A desktop application allows you to build a one-on-one relationship with your audience. They choose you, and look to you multiple times a day for the content you can deliver in just one click. It is a place they visit first when their computer fires up in the morning and frequently throughout the day. These people are a registered base, are classified as high loyalty and high affinity, and high usage.
Media companies are looking to own this experience as the content is relevant, timely, and first. This touch, the first touch, is much like the cup of coffee that starts your day off right; desktop applications start millions of consumers' days off right.
There are many desktop applications out there from leading companies like AOL, MSN, The Wall Street Journal, Southwest Airlines and of course WeatherBug. People look to these applications to start their day for specific content from a medium they rely on and have a relationship with.
Now don't get me wrong, I think website advertising is a powerful tool as well, but when you can gain the trust and loyalty of an audience to the point the choose to download an application, they are inviting you and your sponsors in. So the trust is already there for the information being delivered, the brands being portrayed, and it is as good as that first cup of coffee in the morning.
Andy Jedynak is the senior vice president and general manager of WeatherBug, which is owned by AWS Convergence Technologies Inc. Jedynak began at AWS in 1999 and is responsible for the WeatherBug business unit. He has directed the growth of WeatherBug from a concept in 2000 to become a top online weather property in 2003. Prior to joining AWS in 1999, Jedynak spent nine years at NBC working within a number of disciplines, including manager of new media.