Flex 06 Jun 2008 10:48 am
Branded Utility and Flex
Average consumers are bombarded with so much advertisements every day, they’ve learned to tune it out. So how do you capture people’s attentions over the white noise? Simple! Step 1, build a small piece of software that’s useful. Step 2, customize it to your brand. It’s called “branded utility”, and it’s fast becoming the most cost effective way to advertise.
“Branded Utility” might be a new buzz word, but the practice is more common than you think. eBay Desktop is a great example. The eBay Flex/AIR app is not going to directly boost eBay’s bottom line in any way, so why would they build it? Because it helps eBay reinforce its brand with its power users.
Flex/AIR is the ideal platform for building branded utilities. A effective branded utility needs two things: a really cool UI and a seamless deployment model. Flex and AIR have both. Some very smart Flex development shops, such as the Teknision, have positioned themselves to creating branded applications.
Adobe has taken it one step further, and positioned itself as a publisher for branded utilities. The Premier Express, with successful customers such as YouTube, has proven itself as the poster boy for branded utilities.
Flex is the best platform for delivering branded apps, but it’s not perfect. It’s very easy to brand the skin of a Flex app, but it’s difficult to change the behavior of a Flex component. For example, a company like Apple might want a button bar that behaves like the OS X dock, with fish-eye effect and bouncy icons. Anyone who has ever tried to extend Flex components would know that is not easy to do without “monkey patching” the base classes. Adobe needs to come up with a better way for developers to do deep customizations on Flex components.
Not everyone from the community, however, likes to see Flex/AIR serving as a advertisement platform. The fact of the matter is that branded utility is going to be a big part of the Flex/AIR ecosystem. We should embrace it, instead of chiding it.
Need to bring your Flex project up to speed? Zee Yang is a freelance Flex developer with deep understanding of architecture and user experience. You can reach him at zee.yang@gmail.com.
on 10 Jun 2008 at 9:31 pm 1.Ben said …
I agree. It is not really advertising when it adds value based on an existing relationship with a brand. For example, if you have a Subaru app that gives you information about tuning your WRX and connects you to the WRX community without needing to “log in” or a Presidents Choice app that manages your grocery list and budget.
on 21 Jun 2008 at 5:08 am 2.Developer said …
[Average consumers are bombarded with so much advertisements every day, they’ve learned to tune it out. So how do you capture people’s attentions over the white noise? Simple! Step 1, build a small piece of software that’s useful. Step 2, customize it to your brand. It’s called “branded utility”, and it’s fast becoming the most cost effective way to advertise.]
I absolutely agree with you.
on 02 Jun 2009 at 10:15 am 3.Participation Marketing » American Airlines Website Disaster said …
[...] but is frustratingly clumsy resource. One way to solve the problem might be individual widgets (branded utility as fashionable parlance has it) on the desktop or Iphone for seeking flight time updates [...]