Volkswagen Picks iPhone Over TV

In a banner moment for mobile application vendors, Volkswagen has decided to pitch its new GTI through an iPhone app rather than TV. Why? Are German car makers gaga for the iPhone? Not really. Tim Ellis, Volkswagen’s vice president of marketing, explained:

Launching the all-new 2010 GTI via the Real Racing GTI App allows us to connect with this savvy GTI consumer within his or her everyday life in a way that no 30-second spot ever could.

The other side of the equation is this: the ad blitz accompanying the 2006 GT1 launch cost $60 million, while this iPhone app campaign will cost an estimated $500,000, according to AdAge.

And while an iPhone-only strategy may seem limiting, consider this: In September, Apple reported there are more than 50 million iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide. By comparison, CBS’ “NCIS,” the most-watched show for week ending Oct. 18, reached 21 million viewers and commands an average price of $130,000 for a single 30-second spot.

This is truly a seminal moment in the history of mobile applications, but it should be accepted as an inevitability rather than a surprise. As Morgan Stanley’s Internet analyst, Mary Meeker, noted in a presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week, “Apple is driving the platform change to mobile computing… [and] mobile related share shifts will create/destroy material shareholder wealth.”

Volkswagen’s decision reflects not only the emergence of mobility as the world’s most ubiquitous computing platform (not news in the developing world but hot news in North America), but the huge advantage that Apple enjoys thanks to its iTunes-based app store. Google’s Android currently boasts of all the things it does that iPhone doesn’t, but that doesn’t matter to mainstream users who are already comfortable with iTunes — nor to the advertisers who want to market to those consumers.

The race now will be for Nokia, Research in Motion, and Palm, as well as Web-based app stores like GetJar and carrier-based stores like Qualcomm’s Plaza to establish which of them can occupy second place. The lead position is out of their respective reaches, but third place won’t matter to potential advertisers.