Designing branded mobile apps: Fundamentals and recommendations

The development of mobile applications has represented a challenge and opportunity for companies to market their brands and products through a new channel; however, the branded mobile applications (branded apps) currently available in the market are far from perfect and existing app designs do not yet have well-established mobile and social features. This article offers systematic guidelines for branded app design by identifying different levels of strategies that should be taken into consideration by companies. We illustrate five business objectives (communication, customer relationship management, sales, product innovation, and marketing research) and identify five types of branded apps (tool-, game-, social-, m-commerce-, and design-centric). Three functional building blocks are proposed to specify how mobile features, social features, and brand mention elements should be incorporated into branded app development. Various examples of branded apps are provided to illustrate relevant best practices in order to guide marketers in improving branded app design.