On Friday Kendrick Lamar announced his first tour in 5 years and presale tickets could be purchased via Cash App. This was no surprise after our findings in the Brand Relative App Growth Index (BRAG Index) revealed partnerships was a popular mobile marketing strategy used by top apps over the last six months.
The savviest of apps, like Cash App and Chick-fil-A, thought beyond brand marketing and used partnerships to drive installs by lining up value on the other side. Download and use Cash App to get exclusive access to presale tickets, and download and use Chick-fil-A for free chicken sandwiches if your local NHL team wins. Among cryptocurrency apps though, the classic endorsement partnership strategy seemed to have worked to make people feel more comfortable about the idea of digital currencies. Crypto.com, the second place Transcender in the finance category, is now being critiqued because its advertisement with Matt Damon maybe made people too comfortable.
Either way, the BRAG Index report for the top 20 finance apps highlighted how effective the alignment of brand with culturally relevant influencers, athletes, sporting events and movements could be to gain trust for trendy fintech products. The consumer survey to assess brand funnel strength for apps in the BRAG Index found low awareness and intent to install for Cash App, Crypto.com and Coinbase. That was in October, before the following:
- Crypto.com’s commercial with Matt Damon and purchase of naming rights to the former Staples Center.
- Cash App’s launch to teen users with TikTok influencer Jojo Siwa as spokesperson.
- Cash App’s publicized response to pay Odell Beckham Jr’s NFL salary in crypto.
- Coinbase’s Super Bowl commercial.
Finance had the highest amount of Transcenders and Leaders across the 7 categories studied. Interesting for a category that one would think has to earn trust of its brand before acquiring users to store and move their financial assets. But the 11 apps in the top half of the BRAG Box below were able to convert brand trust more quickly.
Outside of pop culture partnerships, business development within the financial and mobile ecosystems looked to be the other top driver of user acquisition success. Zelle, for example, integrates with more financial institutions to enable P2P payments between members. As more and more banks adopt Zelle, Zelle’s own app is growing likely because of the increasing amount of cases when members of two different banks that have Zelle want to pay each other.
Read more insights about user acquisition strategies in the first-of-its-kind BRAG Index, created in partnership with Digital Turbine, at the link below.
