SAN FRANCISCO ? An HBO executive at ad:tech said the company has seen a lot of success with its iPad application, with more than six million downloads since its launch last spring.

During the ?Tablets and Advertising: Best Practices for Appvertising & Branded Apps? panel, executives discussed how tablets are an ideal platform for delivering personalized content and advertising. The panel was moderated by Lori Hi. Schwartz, chief technology catalyst at McCann Worldgroup.

?The key was to make the app easy to use for our users and have them engage with the content,? said Hans Deutmeyer, vice president of HBO/Max Go at HBO, New York.

?Our goals were to do a couple of things to create an experience that only HBO could do,? he said. ?HBO used to be where people would watch TV on their computer and now the environment has changed and people are watching it through different sources and devices.

?And, it?s important for us to be on these devices.?

HBO GO
HBO partnered with Huge to help develop the interactive iPad app.

Nowadays, users expect a special level of engagement and entertainment from their favorite brands and retailers.

Therefore, when marketers are looking to develop a mobile presence ? whether it is a mobile app or mobile site ? they must keep the user in-mind and determine how they can take that engagement to another level.

Huge decided to create an explosive carousal for the HBO GO iPad app.

?We wanted to do something better and the iPad lets you go in any direction,? said Gene Liebel, chief strategy officer of Huge, New York. 

?One of the main things was to get the design out of the way and connect users to these shows,? he said.

Mobile all the way
According to the executive, on many levels apps are better than Web sites.

Mobile apps are lean, fast, agile, accountable and most importantly measurable.

However, mobile apps are nothing unless marketers make sure that the content is right.

It is important to test mobile apps and make sure that users are engaging with them.

The HBO Go iPad app lets users stay up-to-date on their favorite shows, as well as stream them through their tablet device.

The app also lets users customize their Watchlist to catch up to their favorite shows such as True Blood, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire and Entourage.

?There?s a lot of people using this and it?s changing the way people are using it,? Mr. Deutmeyer said. ?It?s still early to talk about the impact, but we?re seeing that 85 percent of HBO GO users are watching more HBO because of it.

?Eighty-one percent say that they are very satisfied with the app and we?re quite please with that,? he said.