Interview with Tom Farrell from Swrve - Applause 2017 Skip to main content

Interview with Tom Farrell from Swrve

Tom Farrell is VP Marketing EMEA at Swrve and he will participate at “App Marketing Panel Discussion” with other speakers from InfoJobs, Geenapp and Mobile Dev Memo. We are eager to listen him next May 27 th!

Besides, we want to express our gratitude to Swrve for being one of Applause 2017 silver sponsors. Swrve is a marketing engagement engine for mobile, supporting the design and delivery of native mobile experiences and automated campaigns that engage users, deep analytics capabilities, and integrated extension of existing marketing cloud technologies.

Do you want to learn more about App Marketing trends? Do not miss Applause 2017 and find out more about Tom in this interview!

Quick Quiz Tom Farrell – Swrve

Tom Farrell

1. What’s your story?

I’ve been working in tech for over 20 years and in mobile for as long as that technology has existed. After a variety of roles with start-ups in Dublin, I worked for six years in the brand team at Paddy Power – one of Europe’s largest online betting firms. At Paddy Power I was involved in the launch of the mobile app and led research into the impact of mobile on the busiess (short answer – a big impact!). At Swrve I’m primarily responsible for driving the business but that involves working with our clients on making mobile a success for them. I’ve also reached Island 9 on Tiny Wings.

2. How is your day-to-day?

Varied! I spend a lot of time reading and writing about mobile – the results are on our blog at swrve.com/blog and elsewhere online! After that – meeting clients, evaluating mobile strategy, and looking after our own demand generation efforts.

3. What was your biggest mistake and what did you learn from it?

I’ve probably been guilty of committing budget to acquisition or demand generation before being absolutely confident the business is ready to maximize the value of the customers delivered. I’m almost certainly not the only one – the lesson is it is vital to be confident about the product or service before spending acquisition dollars.

4. If you didn’t work in app marketing sector, what would you be doing?

I’d like to think I’d be writing detective fiction, but more likely I’d be more centrally involved in the branding and above the line world of marketing – something I’ve been involved in before and enjoyed immensely.

5. How many years have you been working in the mobile industry? What has changed since you started to nowadays?

Depending on your definition of mobile, I’ve been involved in one way or another for 15 years or so. The smart phone in particular changed everything, mobile went from a niche way to access online services (remember WAP?) to the dominant channel for brand / consumer interaction. Over the past 10 years we’ve seen almost every large B2C go from dabbling in mobile to declaring themselves a ‘mobile first business’

6. Which are the hottest apps that have surprised you the most?

I think the most interesting and surprising thing has been the rise of what I would call ‘service’ apps. Banking and travel are great examples. Adoption in some areas has been extraordinary – I recently spoke to one major bank who manage more interactions in one minute on the app than in their entire branch network in an entire week! It’s no surprise that games, dating, retail and so on are moving to mobile, but it is interesting to see such established high street businesses almost completely switch across.

7. What’s the main contribution of apps to our society?

I think apps have fundamentally changed how we interact with brands. In a sense, they will kill traditional broadcast advertising, which is probably a good thing! Mobile is an ‘active’ technology – the consumer chooses what to do and when to do it. Interrupting that flow with traditional advertising leads to more irritation than benefit. In a sense mobile, and mobile apps, are fantastically empowering for individual consumers.

8. How do you think the app marketing ecosystem would be in 3-5 years?

I think we’ll see ever more focus on ‘service provision’ rather than advertising. At Swrve we tend to work with larger enterprise customers, and what we see is an understanding that helping people in their day to day is more important than getting new customers. Smart, optimized mobile experiences mean more customer loyalty and greater long-term revenues.

9. If you’d have to give any advice to an entrepreneur/business who’s ready to launch an app, what would it be?

Be absolutely certain that the app delivers in terms of impact on the business before you pay to acquire customers. See ‘greatest’ mistake above!

10. What do you think would be the next app marketing hit?

It’s already coming, but I suspect that we’ll see a lot more of brands integrating their offering within messaging apps such as Facebook, WhatsApp etc. From personal experience I know that the next generation LIVES inside these apps, and brands that can create a meaningful ‘organic’ presence in those spaces stand to reap huge benefits. As mentioned above, I think old-school advertising is dying. What replaces it is being ready and able to help when an individual wants you.

11. Is there something you’d like to add?

Looking forward to Barcelona and ready to take on all comers on Tiny Wings!

Hope you enjoy the interview! Learn more about App Marketing trends at Applause 2017, on May 27 at W Barcelona 😉

 

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Daniel PM

Author Daniel PM

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