Have a look at the Apple iTunes Store in the iPhone Applications area, most popular free applications, and you’ll see marketing evolving before your very eyes. The number three most popular application in the iPhone app store is:

For years advertisers have explored different methods of pushing advertising into the mobile space, and various attempts to have ad sponsored phone service, ads before calls, ad-funded dialup services and even location aware ads pop up as SMS messsages as you travel around have all basically fallen flat.
Now savvy car company Audi shows us how it’ll be done in the future with Audi A4 Driving Challenge. Here’s the opening screen, you can see they’ve put some effort into this:


Here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter if it’s a fun game or not, it doesn’t matter if it’s better than the other driving games (like Crash Bandicoot: Nitro Card 3D), what matters is that while Ford (NYSE:F), Toyota (NYSE:TM), Chevrolet (NYSE:GM), Mercedes and other automotive manufacturers try to figure out how to utilize and leverage the ever-evolving marketing landscape, Audi has leapfrogged and taken the next step.
You watch, this is just the beginning. Soon we’ll have bar-branded drink mixing iPhone apps, cookware-sponsored recipe management, rental car agency-built driving directions applications, and much more.
And along the way, I already know of some films that are developing iPhone applications to help promote and market their upcoming films. Brilliant!
We’re on this road to stay, the road of moving the computer from our office to our home, from our desk into our pocket (by way of our laps).
Kudos to Audi for this revolutionary application. Oh, and try it too, it’s pretty fun: Audi A4 Driving Challenge