Branding in a crowded space

The apps market is a pretty crowded place. Anyone who has searched the iOS store or the Google Play store will tell you that is quite tough to cut through the clutter despite the best efforts of the designers. Yet, in this space, over all these years, there are brands.

As usual, we were trawling through the app store on what we could download – looking  for that mix of cost and space and entertainment that can be branded as education enough to be ‘marketed’ and ‘justified’ and then made available to the kids. And then, all of a sudden, the little one says, Chillingo – they make good apps. They made Cut the Rope. Endless Road is also nice – therefore this (whatever we were looking at) must be nice. So, we googled, read through the Chillingo site and promptly downloaded whatever they had to offer.

And then after a moments reflection, “even Half-Brick is good – they made Jetpack Joyride and Fruit Ninja”.

Now who said, making space in a digital store is impossible? Of course, it is tough, but not impossible. If you can create an impression in a place like this, what makes it unable for us to create space for ourselves in any arena we choose?

So what gives? How does one get there? Taking a leaf from those apps – and this is my list, it probably means:

·         Coolness - Consistency of ‘wow’ moments (the games are different each time, yet I can have fun)
·         Ease of engagement -Intuitive (ease of play)
·         Value for money (or else appa wont download)
·         Great design (that makes the users ‘feel’ each time)
·         Challenges that make one want ‘more’ (basically delivering more each time)

Some lessons for personal branding there…