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Project Overview
For nearly 30 years the Good Food Guide has been "the foodie Bible", reviewing restaurants to decide which ones get the coveted "chef hats" at the industry's leading food awards. In 2011 we turned our book into a "must have" app for food lovers.
Organisation
Team
Simon Bates, General Manager - Fairfax Enterprises
Fairfax Digital, CSU Team (Design, UX and Build)
Fairfax Digital, Architecture Enterprises (Database development)
Project Brief
The paperback version of The Sydney Morning Herald's Good Food Guide has been a holy grail for diners seeking the skinny on the city's hot restaurants for nearly three decades. Now the app lets you download the book and carry it on your mobile device. The apps bring the books to an existing as well as brand new audience - food lovers who want to use the content whilst they're out and about.
The content of the book is brought to life electronically by searching by name or suburb and useful filters like sorting by score, food types, opening hours.
Bespoke features include adding to Favourites and User Generated Comments, to allow people to write their own reviews and talk about their own experiences.
Map integration allows users to see the location of their chosen restaurant on a map, or by using the Around Me, select and filter the listing on a map view.
Project Innovation / Need
The app allows users to make restaurant reservations (in real time) read and write their own reviews, upload them and rate restaurants. The "Food Around Me" filter provides good maps and locations of restaurants in a user's current location.
Because we exists as both a book and and app, we are catering for the needs of two different audiences, unlike any other food app on the market. A new electronic audience is now reading our restaurant reviews, writing their thoughts for fellow diners and consuming the content in a different way.
We wanted to take our brand to a new audience. While our 2011 book sales remained the same as in previous years (still one of Australia's best selling titles), the app increased our audience by more than 30,000 in less than a year.
User Experience
Users can submit stars out of 5 for Food, Ambience, Service and Value.
They can also make their own comment about the listing for others to view.
Users can also share via Facebook, Twitter and email.
Some user feedback we have on iTunes:
"I use this often and prefer it to the book as I can filter the results."
"This is a great example of an iPhone. Taking useful information and turning it into a fluid app with loads of cool features. Well worth the price of download."
"Very easy to use. It's so convenient to be able to isolate your search without having to flick through the pages!"
"Nice clean design and simple to use interface"
"The app is a good alternative to lugging the book around with you. Interactive map is an awesome aspect of the app."
"Works as described, even useful when there is no internet connection."
Project Marketing
We launched the Good Food Guide app (for $9.99) at the same time as our book and awards. We promoted it in the pages of our newspapers, via online, social media and at our Good Food Guide awards events.
We ran sales promotions after Christmas - selling it for half price in January. We also ran a Valentine's Day promotion to encourage consumers to use it to find a restaurant for their loved one.
Food & Drink
This category relates to applications themed around food and drink. Restaurant and bar reviews and guides would enter here.
More Details