SpongeBob on the iPhone

Nickelodeon working with the development shop Mobui has launched a SpongeBob iPhone Ap.  More Nick character aps are in development.  Check out the press release here (link)  and a Mashable post here (link). This ap quickly rose to the top 10 iPhone ap list with over 3000 downloads per day.

I’ve been keeping an eye on iPhone aps mostly because I’d like to do one but haven’t found a way to justify it.  As iPhone sales continue to grow the users will start to include the target audience I’m after.  I’m wondering why Nick went with this — I’d guess that after 10 years on the air SpongeBob has a pretty large audience of 20 year old that are now carrying around iPhones.  But that doesn’t explain why Nick will soon be releasing Dora and iCarly aps. Another thought is that the dev shop was building Advergames for AddictingGames.com and Shockwave.com so why not tweak the code a bit and get an iPhone version.

The big picture here is that all phones will be iPhone or iPhone knock offs within 3 years.  Unfortunately, they will probably all have their own development code (unless Android takes off).  So there will be huge opportunities in reaching the mobile consumer through aps but they will be costly to develop across phone platforms.

Thoughts:

• As I’ve written before (post),  Mobile Aps as a marketing strategy will become HUGE!  Keep an eye on this space and consider the benefits of getting in early rather than waiting for the field to become very very crowded.
• Aps are great at connecting consumers with your brand in a very engaging way.  When developing these aps think about making them viral so fans of your brand can share their love with their friends.
• Also think about how the ap could drive to sales.  For example, could this SpongeBob Tickler ap tie into a physical product?