If you're one of those marketers who think this iPhone Apps trend is all very well, but in your heart of hearts a little well.... overhyped, you're not going to like this story very much as you're going to have to rethink your world view. Because Pizza Hut's recent iPhone App has already generated more than $1 million worth of food sales, as well as winning hundreds of thousands of branding points in the form of downloads and free TV exposure.
The App itself is pretty cool - I'll embed the video demo below - making full use of the iPhone functionality. For instance, you can control the size of the pizza you want to order by pinching or stretching, or you can have toppings on only half the pizza by tilting the iPhone. Pizza Hut also benefited from winning the unofficial Grand Prix of Apps by being selected by Apple to feature in one of the ubiquitous "There's an App for That" TV ads, which drives massive exposure and an humongous volume of downloads.
“From an income standpoint iPhone customers tend to be more affluent,
and they’re in the tech-savvy 18-34-year-old demographic skewing
slightly male that we tend to go after online,” [said a spokesman]. “We always saw
a steady level of growth with our mobile business via our WAP site, but
to be candid it wasn’t the explosive level of growth we’ve seen with
the iPhone app."
Mobile is in the process of changing media - more fundamentally than the first digital revolution has - and the next years will continue to demonstrate this again and again and again. That's a pretty good reason to become mobsessed.
