As mobile technology progresses by the day, and mobile apps offer a variety of options for improving operations, brands are trying to follow the trends and communicate with their customers in this way, by offering relevant information, knowledge and experience. If we bear in mind that attracting new consumers of certain goods or services certainly entails an expense, often several times higher than the cost of retaining existing customers, mobile apps are one of the channels of communication whose production does not necessarily require copious sums of money.
An example of a good mobile app, which can be downloaded for free from Google Play and the App Store, which in only four months recorded more than 76,000 downloads (eight times more than expected) and ranked in the top three apps on Google Play, is the Simply Tastly app – a clear and very comprehensive gastronomic guide, which was born in the workshop of Coca-Cola. In that period, every user used the app more than seven times, which explains the high rating that it achieved – 4.6 out of 5 stars.
This culinary app is a treasury of over a thousand recipes of local bloggers, which is a big advantage over the recipes that come from abroad, which usually contain at least one ingredient that is unavailable in the local market. Beside each recipe there is a list of ingredients necessary to prepare it, and which can be easily shared with family members via phone (via SMS, Facebook, Twitter, Viber, WhatsApp, etc.). “A cherry on top” is a list of shops in the vicinity, as well as the current campaign and promotional prices in them.
Witnessing to the fact that it’s not enough just to design a mobile app, which is by no means an easy or a job that can be quickly implemented, is the fact that the mere setting up of the app on the App Store or Google Play does not bring results per se – it has to be “brought” to the end user. Installation of the app can be achieved in two ways: users themselves find the app by dedicated search or they install it after seeing an ad. In this “vicious circle”, you need both types of users, because those who come to the app through an advertisement can significantly affect its ranking and thereby increase the number of users who independently come to it. Campaigns that achieve such results must be “live”, flexible and efficient in real time, because digital channels make such requests from advertisers and media agencies.
Confirmation of the success of the campaign for Simply Tastly app arrived from the first IAB MIXX Conference and Awards Serbia 2016, which in the category of Best Mobile, took the gold award for Coca-Cola and media agency UM Beograd. “With the campaign Coca-Cola Simply Tastly we entered the finals of the festival BalCannes, and following that at the first IAB MIXX Conference in Serbia we won the first place in the category. This campaign is an example of the integrated use of media in an innovative way and is an indicator of how the quality collaborations with long-time partners, as well as mutual understanding, knowledge of customers, markets, brands and communication channels,” said Dubravka Urošević, Regional Account Director of the agency UM Beograd. She added: “The campaign for Simply Tastly app, recognized as the most successful by the experts, confirms the quality of services provided by the agency, and it is also the result of teamwork between us, our client, as well as other agencies engaged by the Coca-Cola Company with whom we work on different projects.” In order to promote the Simply Tastly app, among other things, programmatic ad placements on mobile devices was used, which was the first time this method was used in Serbia. “It’s a pleasure working with a client who has full confidence in us, who motivates us and supports us in our intent to implement a variety of innovative and non-standard ideas in the field of planning communications and media,” ends Dubravka.
Although today the advertising industry is buzzing about content marketing and relevant moments in which it is important to place the brand message to potential consumers, the truth is that these factors have always been at the top of the list if we want to create a successful marketing campaign. In this sense, “there is nothing new in the fact that when planning media campaigns for clients we always have in mind which communication channels will transmit relevant and important message for the target audience, accurately and consistently,” said Jovana Petrović, Regional Account Manager of the agency UM Beograd. “We applied this type of work even in the years when the Internet was not a part of the budget to the extent that it is today. However, the true challenge for marketers is the speed at which this process takes place, and this thanks to the phenomenon of the Internet. Online advertising has indeed changed our reality in terms of the responsiveness and the immense need for relevance and originality in a sea of sensations that consumers experience everyday,” added Jovana.
Case of The Coca-Cola Company Simply Tastly App can be viewed at the following