Week 32 in the life of Logobama.com resulted in the second heaviest week of traffic to the site since launch. To celebrate, we’re going to discuss the concept of branded applications.
What’s a branded application? A branded application is the concept of digital brand strategy applied to a functional, actionable application (as opposed to an overall company website, marketing campaign, etc.). Branded applications are more than a company simply slapping their logo on an application. How the application works, the interaction language, and why the application exists are direct reflections on the company’s brand.
We weren’t commissioned by the Obama campaign to create Logobama.com, so we had to go with our instincts and digital brand knowledge on how the Obama brand would be represented in an online application. Based on what we knew about the brand, we set a simple objective for the application:
Create a way for people to personalize and show their support for Barack Obama.
To best represent the Obama brand, the application needed to:
- be easy to use
- allow for personalization
- create a way to easily display and share Logobamas
- rely on grassroots/word-of-mouth to promote Logobama.com
- facilitate donations to www.barackobama.com
In less than two weeks, we concepted, designed, built and launched the site as an experiment in branded application development. Thirty two weeks later there are almost 22,000 Logobamas created, over 60,000 visitors and $1,400+ in donations. It’s branded application in action.
Of course Logobama.com isn’t the only Obama branded application out there… some of our local Portland friends helped develop the Obama ‘08 iPhone application. And artists have been involved in the Obama brand from the start, as covered in this Cool Hunting article titled, “Art, Design and Technology for Obama” (which also mentions Logobama.com – thanks!). We’re also pleased to see Logobama being talked about on Twitter, and are pleasantly surprised when we see Logobamas being used in the wild as avatars across the web.
So what does all this mean? Digital brand is reflected in people’s interaction with your application, so make sure you create a great experience.
As for Week 32, we’ve added a new graph to the mix: Total Number of Logobamas Created. Enjoy!
Total Donations and Donations Week by Week
Total Number of Logobamas Created Week by Week
Percent of Visitors Creating a Logobama per Week
Have a comment?