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Designing an App for smartphones, Tablets for the Apple iTunes Store, Google Play Store, or Windows Phone Store? Or are you making a Web App aimed at the Desktop users using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox and their respective Web App Stores?

Well, after you’ve covered the easy part, which is registering as a Developer and designing your App, you might want consider Television advertising to boost traffic to your App.

You’ll need your App to stand out from the crowded field of similar freemium Apps, especially if you want people to appreciate your programming talent while making money from In-App purchasing or advertising as explained in “In-App Purchasing falters as Freemium In-App Advertising for Mobile Games is the Real Moneychanger”.

That American demographic of potential downloaders of your App tends to be mostly Latino and African American teenagers who probably are using Wi-Fi because their Data Plans have run out a concluded from the Pew Research Study in the article “American Middle-Income Millennial Minorities love Mobile Internet”.

Social Media Marketing (read posting on Twitter and Facebook!) while low-cost for a low-key Developer eager to be known for their Developer skills as pointed out in Social Media Marketing – Advertising and Marketing in Ja on a Shoe-String, only reaches persons who are on Social Media.

So with Social Media being basically free “advertising”, why is television becoming so interesting all of a sudden? It’s all about the Demographic, what they do in while watching Television and the Future of Television!

Advertising, Celebrities and Developers – Friends With Benefits target Multi-Tasking Teenagers

Many of those in the smartphone demographic mentioned above are couch-potatoes who also watch Television with their smartphones in their hands. This is especially true if a big game is on Television, such as the Super Bowl XLIX earlier in January 2015.

Developers for Clash of Clans and Game of War took note and splashed cash on expensive ads featuring A-List celebrities such as Liam Neeson and Kate Upton.  Not surprising; Video games are a competitive business in the US of A. The more interest you can drum up in your just-released title, the better.

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Even designing games in partnership with Celebrities is potentially a new trend, now with the runaway success of Glu Mobile, a casual Gaming Developer that partnered with A-List Socialite Kim Kardashian to make the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood App, clocking some US$200 million just from In-App purchases of K-Stars.

Glu Mobile is allegedly trying to duplicate this success with Katy Perry, also a hot commodity from Super Bowl XLIX! Hopefully that game’ll include Left Shark!

Developers have taken note of this trend of using Celebrities and Television to push their Apps as it’s a potent combination that boost traffic to their App on the App Stores online and boosts revenues. The reason is quite obvious; many persons watching Television also happen to have their smartphone handy.

Nielsen 2014 Q4 Statistics – Television Targeted Teenagers Tap that App and spread the Word

Despite living in an era of Streaming, both for Music and Video via such channels as Spotify and YouTube, not everyone has cut the cord. Television still has a sizeable audience according to Television analyst Nielsen’s 2014 Q4 Statistics:

  • 285 million TV viewers in the U.S. alone
  • 84% of Americans watch TV with their Tablet or smartphone
  • 56% of those TV-smartphone multi-taskers are using their smartphone while watching TV

Thus Television users are a captive audience who at that very instant can reach for their smartphone and download the App once an advertisement appears on TV promoting it. This is made possible by longer ads, as a ten (10) second skippable ad on Social Media and YouTube just can’t sell you App the same way the same ten (10) to fifteen (15) second ads on Cable TV with a captive audience can.

And that’s another plus; Target marketing.  Because many Teenagers and Millennials may have a favourite show on, say, Disney XFinity or HBO that they watch while their smartphone is within reach, it presents the Developer with the opportunity to advertise on a particular channel during a particular timeslot to a specific target audience.

They can potentially reach new audiences this way, as Social Media sites, especially Facebook, are less about engagement and more about who can score the most “likes”, as smartphone users often skip clicking on ad fearing it’ll use up their Data Plan allotments.

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For this reason, many mobile Video ads go unnoticed.

But on Television, the ad can be played in its entirety when the individual is on their smartphone, multi-tasking between the Television and their device. In fact, viewers of an ad for a particular App are not only more likely to download and install the App, but they are more likely to talk about it via Social Media with their friends, basically spreading the word and helping the App to go viral.

This Halo Effect was explored in depth by Managing Partner at Dynamo Partners Stefan Bielau at the Summit.  He pointed out that this was not seen with mobile advertising, which to me indicates that Mobile Advertising on Social Media is not as effective as Television Advertising.\
Smart TV Web Stores – The Future will be Televised and Developers will benefit

With the future increasingly being dominated by Smart TV’s such as the Samsung SUHD Quantum Dot Television Set that runs on Tizen OS as noted in “Samsung’s SUHD Smart TV running Tizen OS as UHD Alliance grows and Internet of Things beckons”, Television may be the next arena on which Developer can port their Apps.

Not to be left out, Developers for Web Apps for the Mozilla Firefox Browser will be able to create App for Firefox OS under the Mozilla Ignite Initiative launched May 2015. Firefox OS is now the Smart TV OS for Panasonic thanks to a deal mentioned in January 2014 at CES 2014, giving Developers the chance to have their Apps on yet another potentially lucrative Web App Store smack dab in front of their target audience.

So it’s mighty convenient that they can also advertise on that platform too, as Social Media Marketing of Video Games did not kill the Radio or TV Streaming Celebrity potential to sell your App.

Dear Developer, you just didn’t realize how powerful that potential cocktail of Celebrities and Cable Television STILL is!!

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