Smartphone Platforms Need A Branding Reset

In the white-hot US smartphone market, the once-invisible underlying software platforms have become one of the fiercest areas of competition. RIM and Apple lead this market, while platforms from Google, Microsoft, and Palm seek to gain share and new entrants loom. But despite booming hardware sales, consumers are rather clueless about the software running on their phone. This is a prescription for disaster as brands invest in mobile phone applications to enrich the quality of their customers' experience on the go. Product strategists in every part of this ecosystem need to craft simple and consistent brand messages to ensure that their customers can discover, find, purchase, and engage with their products.