KPMG : Keeping too quiet

Promotion of an iPad app is overly restrained.

The Site

KPMG, a global accounting firm, promotes an iPad app for its articles and publications poorly in associated areas of its website.

KPMG’s global website highlights on the landing page of its Issues & insights section the iPad app it has developed for accessing content from the section. The highlight is the last in a set of Latest insights, and links to a standalone promotional page within the section from where links are provided to the App Store to download the app.

There are, however, no promotions or links to this page within the Articles & publications sub-section, the main source for the “interactive library” that the app promises. Nor when viewing the many category lists or individual articles in the sub-section are users made aware of the app’s existence as an alternative to reading or downloading content on the site.

The Takeaway

KPMG’s iPad app is potentially an appropriate development for the medium, providing an environment where the hurried professionals who are Issues & insights target audience can access content for viewing at their convenience offline or on the go. But with all its promotional eggs in the one basket – and one where it may be usurped by more recent or newsworthy insights – there is the risk that the opportunity will pass many of those rushed readers by. The lack of promotion within Articles & publications, the very section it is intended to supplement, or alongside links to individual articles, adds to the risk.

The seeding of links to the app’s promotion page or, at the least, a permanent plug in the right-hand links column, would go a long way to ensuring that the investment in the app makes a decent return.

First published on 19 January, 2012