Hey.
Today, many companies selling goods or providing services have begun to pay close attention to mobile applications as a way to increase sales by expanding their customer base. Sometimes it turns out to be convenient and appropriate, sometimes the application is created on the principle of 'do others have me worse than me?'.
If we are talking about such service sectors as taxi, then the existence of the application is not only justified, but also vital, since the competition in the taxi market is high. And the more convenient the application, the more clients the taxi has.
In some areas, the existence of a mobile application is not so urgently needed, and therefore less attention is paid to the quality of the application, and the main emphasis is on mobile versions of sites adapted for viewing on a mobile phone screen.
But today I would like to talk about another aspect of the existence of applications – their promotion and advertising among a potential audience. The impetus for this was the action that took place in the Burger King fast food chain. On January 29, everyone who installed the application and registered in it was offered to buy a whopper for 29 rubles. 01 kopecks The action was timed to coincide with Cyber Monday. It was possible to take advantage of this offer only through the application, in which it was necessary to find a promotion and buy the proposed burger on the morning of January 29.
On the day of the start of the promotion, on that very cyber Monday, Burger King restaurants were literally attacked by those who wanted to get a wapper at a promotional price.
Not a bad idea in terms of message and price, which was supposed to be a generator of app installs, and would also allow the company to associate with the fashionable trend of digital technologies. The action has fulfilled its function – the number of reviews in the Play Market has grown in leaps and bounds. Now let's get to the point – let's see what reviews people have left about the app.
The action caused a flurry of criticism and negativity. How so?
It's simple. The authors of the action did not foresee all the risks and did not think over the conditions.
Firstly, there were no restrictions on the number of promotional whoppers per hand, which is why in some restaurants you could see someone placing an order of 80 whoppers or more.
Secondly, the organizers did not calculate the possible load, and therefore, in the first half of the day after the start of the campaign, the company's servers could not withstand the load, and it was not possible to enter the application. When I tried to enter the application, either a message was displayed that information was not available, or there was an endless download.
Thirdly, without setting a limit on the quantity, the organizers faced a banal shortage of promotional goods.
Because of all these miscalculations, the action ended without really starting.
In different cities, this happened at different times, however, on average, by 10:00 in the morning, a message appeared in the application stating that the action was completed, and the information was indicated as the reason that there were more applicants than whoppers in the kitchen.
Moreover, judging by the comments on social networks, in some cities the action did not even start – people who came to the doors of restaurants were left with nothing. Instead, they were either asked to come back later, or they were given a refund.
As a result, instead of advertising and increasing the loyalty of potential and existing customers, the company received a lot of negativity from the target audience. I doubt it was planned. It is hardly appropriate in this case to say that black PR is also PR.
I am sure the organizers and management of the network will draw conclusions and make decisions regarding the past action. It is not known what these solutions will be, but someone will obviously get a hat.
In this case, it is difficult to unequivocally answer what was the reason, the organizers' shortsightedness, ignorance or misunderstanding of the scale of the event, or simply a careless attitude 'carelessly'. Such miscalculations happen to many companies, this is not surprising. Either competent planning with a thorough analysis of possible consequences, or reinsurance in providing a reserve fund for a promotional product, can save you from such situations. However, the presence of such a reserve fund already speaks of planning.
Conclusion
I am sure this situation will become an excellent lesson not only for the organizing company itself, but also for its competitors, and will allow them to prepare more thoroughly for their promotions, if any are planned in the future.
Applications have long become an integral part of our life, and many have more than one or two installed on their smartphones. And no matter how well the application works, it can at any time be discredited by the short-sighted actions of the company that released this application.
Dear readers, share in the comments if you have encountered situations after which you began to look at a particular service in a different way, both from the negative side and from the positive?
P.S. Recently, many of my friends have been unable to access the mobile version of one free classifieds site. And in different browsers. When trying to login, the browser closes with an error. But the application works like a clock. Maybe this is also one of the ways to promote the application?
