Adobe’s digital solution offers marketers freedom to create apps

Recently, the company, known for its industry-leading software, including InDesign and Photoshop, pushed the Adobe Digital Publishing Solution (DPS), the next generation of its groundbreaking Digital Publishing Suite.

The idea is to make the creation of apps more democratic. According to the company, with DPS, anyone can now develop an application, add content of choice, and distribute it through platforms like smartphones and tabs, all of this without having to worry about writing codes or learning technology. Today, publishers around the globe are looking at monetising and increasing their revenues, which is where a platform like DPS becomes beneficial, as it also drastically cuts down the time required to build and deploy new apps. Typically development for native apps would take up to eight months for a single platform but with a solution like DPS, publishers can now build up to a hundred apps in a span of two weeks.

What makes the digital publishing solution so compelling in today’s age of information explosion? According to Umang Bedi, managing director, South Asia, Adobe, as smartphones and other handheld devices proliferate, there is a need for immersive and engaging content from marketers to its target audiences, which can be delivered directly to a user’s device using an app, and it can be done in real time. “Using DPS, corporations, universities and media companies can easily repurpose existing content, empowering marketers and designers to create immersive apps, without writing code. These apps can be targeted at internal audiences or made available, through popular app stores, for the general public,” said Bedi. Companies can now also group content together and deliver to any device on iOS, Android and Windows.

Bedi argued that the new Adobe DPS makes it easier and more cost-effective to deliver compelling mobile apps without writing a single line of code.

Moreover, the DPS engine allows for the creation of dynamic and interactive content that is far more engaging for the audience. For marketers looking to widen their distribution, the solution allows continuous updates to be made to existing content, to ensure that consumer engagement is sustained. Continuous publishing gives publishers the capabilities to push fresh content live, giving readers more reasons to return frequently to DPS apps for fresh content and updates along with all the app services needed to acquire and retain audiences, including push notifications; in-app messaging; intuitive search and content discovery; and social network integration.

The solution also integrates with other content management systems, such as Drupal and Wordpress, and HTML design tools from Adobe and others, all while still supporting InDesign CC based workflows, eliminating common issues around complex integration procedures. Apart from delivering a richer, more engaging consumer experience, the solution also provides insightful and accurate analytics based on actual consumer usage patterns, which offers digital publishers and advertisers tremendous scope for monetisation as well, up to five times more than print. Added to this, the platform supports a variety of payment options for apps, such as single purchases, subscriptions and all-access models for publishers and enterprises looking to monetise their content.

With people spending an average of three hours in an app each day, organisations are realising that in order to gain competitive advantage, they need to get in front of their audience, and fast. Those apps, complete with compelling content, aren’t easy to build and require major investment in the form of money, time and resources. Often, organisations are in two minds while taking decisions on making such investments or even changing course midstream if their purpose is not being met, given the absence of a credible and measureable impact assessment tool for the content they are publishing.

The newly launched Adobe DPS is a game-changer in that aspect, said Sanjeev Kumar of Pixel Maverics, the first Digital KPO for content publishers. “The solution helps brands not only drive deep app engagements like never before, it does so while also helping them measure the business impact of such an engagement. No longer will the utility of an app be in the hands of the coder- it will rather lie in the hands of designers and marketers,” he added.

For marketers and designers
The USP of the solution is easy continuous publishing. The solution offers brands seamless control over content, and it integrates with other content management systems, such as Drupal and Wordpress, and HTML design tools from Adobe and others, all while still supporting InDesign CC based workflows.

Bedi said apps created with Adobe DPS deliver high-impact content to audiences in a uniquely intuitive way. With the new collections feature, content is now grouped together and delivered to smartphones and tablets on iOS, Android and Windows. DPS also offers all of the app services needed to acquire and retain audiences, including push notifications; in-app messaging; intuitive search and content discovery; and social network integration.

The best part is that it can also help measure engagement with audiences. With the solution, the users can access built-in analytics, powered by Adobe Analytics Essentials for Publications, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud, which capture online and offline data and deliver retention analysis, acquisition tracking, funnel conversion and more. Adobe DPS also supports a variety of payment options for apps, such as single purchases, subscriptions and all-access models for publishers and enterprises who want to monetize content.

Most importantly, the solution has been built for business. Adobe DPS now provides a new accounts control system that has been elevated to the enterprise level, enabling organisers to assign permissions to each person involved in the app creation process, including both employees and outside agencies.

Making a mark
The solution has already been used by leading brands like Audi and Celebrity Cruises, with hundreds of millions of app downloads to digital devices. Seventy-five million unique visitors from more than 244 countries have engaged with these apps, spending 173 million total hours immersed and entertained. Customers who have released or are planning to release apps built on this new release of DPS include Barneys, Qantas, National Theatre of Great Britain, and the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.