Mobile applications for trust based marketing : design, implementation and evalutation [sic]

Abstract

An emerging trend in marketing has been the use of web and mobile applications to market to a new generation of consumers. These forays into new media reflect a response to increased use of the internet, declining participation in traditional media channels, and new channels for user engagement. Mobile devices in particular are enabling the most enticing new channels for consumer interaction due their frequent use, close user proximity, and features like GPS or camera functionality. This thesis seeks to explore how the mobile platform can best be used to develop consumer trust. The test environment will be the exploration of 3 different mobile application for a major Japanese Bank, that vary in key application design dimensions and the ultimate development of one of them. Those dimensions will be information density, customizability and industry relevance. The application platform design is focused on adaptability so that other developers can use the generalized principles from the study to optimize and test their applications. This is a constraint largely enforced by the need to create a platform that can be adapted to the Japanese and US markets. In addition we seek to test how trust-based mobile apps compare to other stimuli like television, web ads, and mobile ads through controlled pre-post measures of test users.