Nokia on branded apps: 'We're building a snowball effect...'

UK marketing director John Nichols says Ovi Store's momentum is growing.

Nokia's efforts to persuade top-tier brands to launch apps on its Ovi Store are paying off, according to its UK marketing director John Nichols.

"We've been talking to big brands who already had apps on other platforms about working with them to develop apps for Ovi," he tells ME.

"In the last eight to ten weeks, we've been increasingly inundated with brands asking to develop for us. We're building a snowball effect, and the snowball is starting to roll now."

Tesco recently launched a grocery shopping app on the Ovi Store as its lead platform, ahead of iPhone. Meanwhile, this week McDonald's UK ported its existing restaurant finder app to Ovi.

"We cover such a huge base from a commercial opportunity perspective, and the brands approaching us now are seeing that opportunity," says Nichols.

"We're moving much more towards working with people like Tesco to drive transactional-based applications that make a difference."

Nichols also says that Nokia's new TV advertising campaign, which focuses on Ovi, has been rewarded by a significant boost in download numbers in the UK.

"Clearly something like Tesco is going to run and run," he says. "We've had tens of thousands of downloads of that already."

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