Furious Tribe wins three global mobile apps accounts

19 Apr 2010

A Dublin-based digital marketing agency is positioning itself to win a share of a market tipped to grow to US$17.5bn after winning the mobile app accounts for global brands Citibank, EMI Music and Royal Sun Alliance.

The news comes at a time when consumers are expected to spend $6.2bn in mobile application stores as the number of apps will number 4.6bn downloads in 2010.

This would basically mean that the value of apps sold would be greater than the value of CDs sold in 2012 (US$13.83bn).

According to the same study, downloads of mobile apps to handsets will leap from slightly more than 7bn in 2009 to nearly 50bn in 2012, representing a year-on-year growth of 92pc.

“The craze that we are witnessing among users of apps will have a huge impact on the way companies market themselves going forward,” explained Patrick Leddy, managing director of Furious Tribe.

“As more people access information ‘on the go – anywhere’ through their mobile phones, fewer will use their desktop to log on to the internet.

“Then as many more newspapers and broadcast media will use the App Store to publish content, the onus will be on the marketer to look at innovative ways to promote their brand through the mobile platform. Or be left behind!”

Leddy claims that mobile apps users tend to be more willing to pay for their content and are more responsive to branded messages than the average online web user.

Because of this he says: “Companies who do not feature on the App Store will lose out big time. But the secret to a good app must be to ensure that the content is simple, creative, stimulating, informative and entertaining.

“More importantly, it must deliver the information the user wants – and not ‘hard sell’ messages that the company wants to ‘push’ at the user. This approach just won’t work,” Leddy warned.

By John Kennedy

Photos: Patrick Leddy, managing director of Furious Tribe, which has won mobile app accounts for Citibank, EMI Music and Royal Sun Alliance

Patrick Leddy, Furious Tribe

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com