Pizza Hut has had great success with their mobile applications. Last year their app for iPhones and the iPod Touch generated $1 million in sales through orders placed via the app.

In short, the app allows Pizza Hut customers to easily order their favourite Pizza Hut meals on-the-go. As an incentive, app users are rewarded by receiving 20% off their order when they place their order via the app. The interactive app allows users among others to build their own pizzas by dragging and dropping toppings onto the base of the user’s choice. In addition, the app has a built-in game called Pizza Hut Racer that customer’s can play while they wait for their order to be delivered. Earlier this year Pizza Hut launched an augmented reality app for the iPhone. The video below demonstrates their augmented reality app.

Pizza Hut is a great example of a brand that successfully integrated mobile in their overall marketing strategy. Not only does the app add a personal touch to a customer’s brand experience but it allows Pizza Hut to effectively promote special offers or new products.

There are a number of branded magazine apps available for the iPad and recently BMW released the second version of their iPad app.  The first version of the app was more like a digital version (or PDF version) of the print magazine with very limited interactive features.

Generally a mobile magazine allows readers to instantly have access to value-added content like interviews, related videos and so forth.   The new version of the BMW Magazine app is more interactive and engages readers in a sensory way.  Among others the app provides readers with exclusive content and some images can be displayed as 360˚ view of cars by ‘spinning’ images. The video below demonstrate some of the app’s functionality.

Download BMW’s magazine iPad app for free from iTunes or read more about the app on LuxuryDaily.com.

With thousands of mobile apps on the market it may be difficult to decide which apps to install on your smartphone to personalise your mobile experience. Below are a few mobile apps that we find useful.

Evernote
Think of Evernote as the ‘moleskine diary 2.0.’ In short, the app allows you to make notes wherever you go. Just had a great idea? Write a text message and save it in Evernote. Saw an interesting billboard? Take a photo and save it in Evernote. You can even keep track of your expenses by capturing your invoices in Evernote. This app really allows you to “remember everything.” Visit Evernote.com for more information or to download the app.

Trapster
Trapster uses your phone’s GPS capabilities to alert you whenever you approach speed traps, police checkpoints and so forth. The app relies heavy on its users’ contributions to make a success of the app and it seems to have a strong following in South Africa. Visit Trapster.com for more information, it’s worth checking out.

Gravity
Gravity is, in my opinion, the ultimate Twitter app for Symbian-powered smartphones. I have mentioned this app in a previous post but it deserves another mention. This is a paid-for app but well worth the money. If you tweet on the go this app is perfect as it allows you to easily schedule tweets, draft tweets, respond to @ replies and DM’s.

Google Goggles
Google Goggles is a visual search app for Android phones. It allows users to search using an image taken with your mobile phone. Don’t know a logo? Take a photo and submit it to Google Goggles and by using a number of image recognition back ends Google Goggles return relevant results. Pretty cool!

Are there any apps that you can’t live without? Let us know in the comments!