Stephen Molloy, founder of LOMAH Studios + The Inspiration Room launches ‘Appvertising’ book

LOMAH Studios and The Inspiration Room founder Stephen Molloy has just released Appvertising; a 250-page book centered on how brands and individuals can capitalise on the high-speed consumer adoption of mobile applications.

Featuring interviews with world leaders in entertainment, media, advertising and app development, the book includes interviews from the general manager of Disney, Bart Decrem, founder of New York agency StrawberryFrog, Scott Goodson, along with Tom Eslinger, worldwide digital director of Saatchi & Saatchi NYC.

Appvertising is available this month on Barnes & Noble and Amazon, just in time for Christmas.

Appvertising gets inside the digital minds of overseas heavyweights such as Crispin Porter + Boguski executive creative director Joseph Corr along with local Australian admen such as Amnesia Razorfish founders Iain McDonald and Tom Moult.

According to author Molloy, recent global figures show there are nearly 30 million mobile Internet connections in Australia and nearly 100 million apps being downloaded each month, with the major platforms being iOS, Blackberry, Nokia and Android, with the other providers pressing Apple hard.

Says Molloy: “The book discusses the Apple successes with the AppStore, iTunes, iPhone and the iPad and the faults and stuff up such as Apple Maps, which resulted in many employees sacked.”

It also records the demise of the US-based book and music retailer Borders and the growth of Amazon and eBooks.

Says Molloy: “Appvertising researches insight into how Kodak went from a 90 per cent market share of all photographic film sales in the US in 1976 to bankruptcy. The buyout of Instagram to Facebook was settled for over one billion dollars and yet Facebook didn’t even have an Android App at that time.”

According to interviewee Foad Fadaghi, research director at Telsyte, consumers have overtaken both businesses and their employers when it comes to smartphone usage.

Says Fadaghi: “Consumers are more likely to have a smartphone with them at all times than any other accessory. The huge growth area for smatphones is predicted to be Internet search, which is expected to overtake desktop searches by 2013.”

In a 2012 report by The Age telecommunications business reporter Lucy Battersby, it states that half of all Australians may have a smartphone, but less than a third of businesses or organisations have crafted a website to suit to this most popular form of browsing and searching. Even fewer have created their own mobile apps, and many do not plan to do this for another three to five years.

Yet few businesses have optimised their websites for mobiles.

Says Goodson: “Writing a TV spot is easy compared to figuring out a gaming marketing strategy. Creatives aren’t trained for gaming. I think it’s the gaming company’s responsibility to train agencies to think differently.”