Ahead of our 2018 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards, well be previewing the nominees in each category, giving you a glimpse at the high quality of entries weve seen this year. Today, were looking at the highly-competitive world of B2C apps, and the exciting work thats been taking place there over the past 12 months.

Adnams and Immersive Studios – The Adnams Ghost Ship Game Campaign
Ghost Ship is one of the most popular beers produced by award-winning UK brewer Adnams, and to celebrate the ale’s anniversary, Adnams wanted a mobile-first promotion that rewarded beer lovers and brought new drinkers to the brand. A mobile app enabled the brand to reach consumers when they were in the pub with a simple and addictive game that people could play at the bar.
Working with Immersive Studios, Adnams built a game in Unity3D that integrated iconic aspects of the Adnams’ brand, such as the Southwold lighthouse. A simple, addictive game was designed that included competitive elements to keep players engaged, and the free iOS and Android apps were promoted with in-store and in-bar materials.
During the two months the campaign ran, the app saw 10,000 downloads, with over 100,000 games played and over 3500 hours of gameplay. The game beat the average install-to-register conversion rate by almost 10 per cent, and despite the competitive element having ended, the app continues to find new users and keep them entertained, further supporting the Adnams brand.

Argos and Apadmi – My Argos Card App
The Argos Card is a retail program used exclusively by Argos customers to help manage their purchases. As part of a company-wide digital transformation project, Argos Financial Services partnered with Apadmi to create a bespoke mobile app solution for customers, aimed at improving their experience, boosting engagement, increasing loyalty and improving operational efficiency.
The team focused on creating native apps for both iOS and Android to ensure that customers were able to take advantage of all the native benefits offered by mobile, with huge attention paid to UX and UI to make the app more engaging. Smooth integration into existing back-office infrastructure was also vital, with a bespoke piece of middleware built to sit between the application layer and Argos Financial Services’ business-critical, legacy IT systems.
The app was a huge success, with over 750,000 active monthly users, and 32 per cent of all payments for Argos Financial Services now made via the app. It has become the largest digital payment channel for Argos Financial Services, and helped to reduce fraudulent activity by 72 per cent compared to non-digital channels. It has also formed a central part of the firm’s digital transformation, demonstrating business success across a multitude of areas in a quick space of time and in a scalable manner.

Domino’s Pizza UK & ROI and Future Platforms – Domino’s Pizza UK & ROI Apps
Domino’s Pizza and Future Platforms have enjoyed a long and prosperous relationship that began back in 2006, when the two firms collaborated on Domino’s desktop website, social media presence and digital marketing. Over the last 12 years, the way consumers use technology has shifted significantly, and the two companies have worked together to ensure that Domino’s remains at the cutting-edge of mCommerce.
2018 saw the firms undergo a strategic review to boost the success of Domino’s apps, and work to align the app experience across different channels, with consistency between desktop and mobile. A base layer of code was introduced, meaning that apps were technically aligned and could receive new features, upgrades and fixes simultaneously. This base layer has allowed Domino’s to remain consistent as it expands to platforms like Xbox One and the Apple Watch.
Domino’s apps have been downloaded almost 17m times in the UK, and generate more than £10m in sales each week. 2017 saw UK system sales pass the £1bn mark for the first time, and through the introduction of A/B testing that focused on letting users quickly customise menu items, the team has been able to increase the average basket size while also reducing the total purchase journey time.

TrustedHousesitters – TrustedHousesitters App
Having facilitated more than 2m nights of house and pet sitting since launching in 2010, the need for a mobile app for the TrustedHousesitters brand had become evident. When designing the app, the company had three main aims: improving communication, ensuring relevance, and introducing the ability to post and share content. The engineering team concentrated on building a best-in-class app for usability, with a design system based on the atomic design methodology.
The launch of the app was supported with an email campaign rolled out over a 24-hour period, with communications tailored to each side of the TrustedHousesitters network. Within 24 hours, more members were live on the app than on the website, and messaging was used to onboard new members and continually drive downloads.
The app hit its download target for 2018 within the first two weeks of release, and currently averages 2,500 daily users and a rating of 4.7 on the app store. While initial marketing focused on existing members, new marketing has expanded to non-members in the company’s CRM database, which has driven a further surge in membership.

Join us to find out the winners of our 2018 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards at our prestigious Awards Ceremony on 15 November. Tickets are available now, so book your place and celebrate the industrys best and brightest with us.