Mobile Apps Are Musts For Most Brands, As Long As Users Like Them

Jared Guynes has hundreds of apps on his mobile phone. So when Mr. Guynes, a 34-year-old from Rockwall, Tex., took his family to Chili’s Grill & Bar and saw an ad offering free chips and salsa if he downloaded the restaurant’s app, he didn’t hesitate. Then, within minutes of leaving the restaurant last month, he received a flurry of push notifications: one offering another discount, one asking him to take a survey and a third asking to add his location. “I thought, chill out Chili’s,” said Mr. Guynes, who said he was considering deleting the app. “Let me get home and digest the food.” (Chili’s did not respond to a request for comment.) The brand app is no longer just a gimmick to assuage smartphone-addicted millennials. It’s considered a crucial part of a company’s financial strategy. Shoppers in the United States were expected to make $118 billion in retail purchases through their smartphones in 2018, up from $13.4 billion in 2013, according to Forrester Analytics. “If you’re a brand and you don’t have an app strategy or you aren’t investing in your app development, then its going to be really hard for you to engage and monetize the fastest growing population, which are mobile shoppers,” said Jon Hudson, vice president of customer solutions and innovation at Criteo, a digital marketing and technology firm. Read more at The New York Times.