ABC Digital Business

Commissioning and Building Apps An Entertainment Category Checklist (and Cautionary Tale)

ABC’s commercial mobile development

2005 - 2009ABC For Kids - World first pre-

school mobile channel on

3 Mobile

2010 2011 2012News, kids and entertainment content syndicated to multiple telco, media, and retail partners

iOS:Beached AzABC For Kids

iOS:Phillippa FinchSpicks QuizAngry BoysBananas in Pyjamas

iOS:Bananas in PJsRandling

Android:Story Cloud

Source: App Annie 2012

• Loved and trusted kids brand• Over 400k accumulated users• 49,000 uniques per month• 10% conversion – iTunes click-throughs• 50% conversion rate to purchase

Commercial Success

• Huge viral hit• Young male audience• Early technology adopters• Eps, Game, Sound board• Very inexpensive build

Commercial Success

• #1 in Paid Entertainment• Good engagement:

• 14,000 sessions June• 422 avg daily users• 10mins avg session

time• IAP very popular• Struggle to make profit –

dev costs too high

Critical Success

• FREE• Over 50k installs in 1st

Month• Simple but feels rich • Good feedback when free

Critical Success

Download Trends

Download Trends

In App Purchase behaviour

Golden rules...Or

The checklist for commissioning apps

Photo credit: Art Alahay

1. Have a clear idea what you want to achieve

• What behaviour do you want your audience to exhibit on encountering your brand in this space?– Who are they? What will THEY want from your brand?

• Engagement via digital channels?– Keep it simple– Consider the app part of your marketing budget and scale

development accordingly– Include snippets of free content

• Brand awareness?– Choose a cheaper channel– Where you have more control over findability

• If you do want to generate revenue for the brand, go in with eyes open...

2. Choose a business model that makes sense for the medium

FREE

• Most popular with audiences

• Possibly even more important than quality

FREEMIUM

• Make sure you have enough “mium” to go with the free

• Teaser content drive to paid content

• In App Purchase• You can run

FREE sales on app and still monetise

• IAP content MUST be meaningful and desired

PAID

• Works in some instances

• Needs a large addressable audience (global)• With the means

to market to them• Content owners

consider global licensing along with other content

3. Control costs tightly

• Native app dev very expensive compared with the potential for direct revenue

• Look for MVPs that will satisfy audience

• Sacrifice notional equity and partner with your developer for a revenue share– You can share IP, or retain IP

and split revenue only• Added advantage -- developer

more invested in the product, rather than just the project – can lead to better outcomes

Engaging development partners on a work for hire basis...

• Dedicate your own product owner or producer to the project– Give them decision-making authority and responsibility

• Look closely at development partner’s project management processes and practice– Dedicated producer/PM is critical

• And QA practices – Ask for detailed test plans as one of the deliverables– Do they automate testing?– Use an online tracking tool for bug reporting.

• Be realistic about the platform / version combos you'll support• Agree number of rounds of changes you can have for your

budget• Include analytics implementation as a deliverable

4. Reserve budget for post-release and measure user behaviour

• Spend time determining the audience behaviour you will measure early on in the build– Step through your app wireframes to do this

• Implement and test the analytics before release• Don’t spend all your budget getting to launch – release with an

MVP• Do spend time interpreting the results – you’ll learn where you

should be putting the rest of your budget

5. Remember your app is a product, not a project

• Monitor user behaviour• Optimise the app based on user behaviour and feedback• Actively manage app pricing and promotions• Actively use social media

– viral is your main driver

of growth

The Checklist Recap

1. Have a clear idea what you want to achieve, how you want audiences to act

2. Choose a business model that makes sense for the medium

3. Tightly control the development costs (and/or consider rev share partnerships)

4. Reserve budget for post-release and measure user behaviour

5. Remember your app is not a project, it’s a product.

Thank you