iPhone automotive apps -- a magic wand for car sales?
With auto sales in the gutter, the marketing types at automakers will apparently try anything to reel in a customer. The latest craze: branded applications for the iPhone.
It seems that almost every week another auto-themed app for iPhones hits the market (er, app store). After all, the iPhone user is a car salesman's dream demographic -- young, educated, consumer-product oriented and, if not rich, certainly not poor, either.
Some of the apps are little more than advertisements for specific products, while others are decidedly more sophisticated, not to mention useful. Interestingly, there seems to be a distinct disconnect between an app's utility and its relationship to the product behind it.
The Ford Flex Photo Lab, for example, is a useful photo editor for the iPhone that allows filtering and minimal alteration of pictures taken with the device's camera. What it has to do with the Flex crossover vehicle is unclear.
In contrast, apps like one by Mercedes-Benz that are chock-full of advertising materials, promotional images and simple games serve as little more than electronic brochures for the product and don't engender multiple uses.
Another that raises eyebrows: the Scion Radio 17 Beats Per Minute Meter app. It allows users to tap the screen along with the beat of music to determine what genre of music they're listening to. (Apparently Scion drivers prefer House and Drum 'n' Bass?)
Jeri Yoshizu, Scion's sales promotions manager, says the company made the app "to appeal to our trendsetting and tech savvy audience." But whether spending time and money to create, license or sponsor this kind of software actually pays off is hard to say. When Volkswagen launched its VW Polo Challenge game app, more than 1.4 million people downloaded it in just a month, and over the first five months of this year, its sales are up 5.9% in a weak European market. Then again, the VW Golf doesn't have an iPhone app and its sales are up 7.5% year to date.
Meanwhile, tech reviews online seem to indicate that the best and most popular auto-themed apps don't come from automakers, but from companies like TomTom, the GPS company, which turns an iPhone into a navigation system, or a new app from ZipCar that not only allows users to rent a vehicle, but to use the phone itself to remotely unlock the car.
None of that stops the car companies from pumping out more apps (the bandwagon is never too full). Here, a somewhat comprehensive list.
- Audi A4 Driving Challenge (driving game)
- GM Mobile (General Motors news and info)
- Mercedes-Benz (card game, company history, trivia)
- Ford Flex Photo Editor (duh!)
- Scion Radio 17 Beats Per Minute Meter (music rhythm meter)
- Kia Soul on Imeem (social media content sharing app)
- Volkswagen Polo Challenge (game)
- Jaguar XF (pictures, info)
- Mazda3 Concert Quest (concert info, only for Canada)
- BMW Z4 An Expression of Joy (game)
- Lexus sponsored Urban Daddy app (local calendar/events/reviews)
- Nissan Cube (2 apps: one a "hub" for Cube content, the other a scavenger hunt-style game)
Did we miss something? Are there more automaker apps out there? Let us know.
--Ken Bensinger
Image: Volkswagen Polo Challenge app on an Apple iPhone
Credit: mujitra (´･ω･) via flickr
