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The Siren App uses geo-fencing technology to give sporting fans at the ground a unique user experience with unparalleled access to behind the scenes content.
ABOUT
The team at The Siren love and live sport. They decided to build a content system that would allow sporting clubs to capture behind-the-scenes content in real time and publish it only to fans at the ground. They reasoned that this would get more fans off the couch and to live sporting events by bringing everything they love about broadcast sport (and more) to game day.As well as great content, teams could reward fans for being there with offers for their own memberships or products, or those of their partners. This would not only help sell more club membership and merchandise, it would enable clubs to monetise a whole new category of digital inventory.
THE CHALLENGE
Consumers expect their digital experiences to be seamless, intuitive and user friendly. If the experience is anything less, then an app is quickly abandoned. With this in the mind, the team at The Siren team wanted a rich user experience to ensure the app became an instant hit with fans.Furthermore, access to this behind-the-scenes content had to be limited to those at the ground and create a digital connection between the fans, the clubs and advertisers. The architecture had to be designed to handle large quantities of concurrent users, ensuring all interactions for content managers and fans were fast and friction-less.
THE SOLUTION
USER EXPERIENCE
Early mock-ups of the The Siren App were reviewed by Speedwell’s UX experts and a set of recommendations were presented. Revised interactive mock-ups were produced in Invision to demonstrate a new layout and workflow and assist in helping the team to understand how the elements would hang together.Critical user experience items that were delivered included: initial screen experience, notifications, take the tour screens and savings offers.
DEVELOPMENT
The Siren app was written in React Native, a cutting-edge mobile app framework that supports cross platform development with a single codebase; and it was released for iOS and Android. Core app logic was written in React, enabling faster and more agile development when compared to writing traditional native iOS and Android apps. When needed, native modules were used to extend the app and support specific native features, such as rich notifications and geo-fencing.The Siren admin portal was written in React and .Net. Using React proved to be beneficial for similar reasons as the app – improving development speed and quality – while also allowing code and resources to be shared between the app and the portal. Geo-fencing was implemented using the Google Maps API, due to its pervasiveness and reliability.
CONTENT MANAGEMENT
Content managers at the venue (from both clubs and advertisers) capture content in real time. It’s a matter of seconds from the snapping of a photo or video, before it’s uploaded into the system and a push notification is on its way to the fans. These notifications use the latest in rich media capabilities, giving users a snapshot of content to capture their interest, and ensuring that even if someone isn’t directly using the app there is always an attempt at engaging them.
THE RESULTS
The Siren app successfully engages and creates a digital connection between three audiences: fans get exclusive club content, clubs get a dedicated following for their content, and advertisers get a market for timed and targeted offers. Where this idea differs from most is the value of the connection. Fans and content are geo-fenced to an individual event, giving a level of targeting that’s unparalleled.Combined with a lightweight, high speed publishing solution, clubs and advertisers are able to react in real time to action on the ground and provide fans with high value, highly targeted content, driving customer engagement.
The Siren is the first of its kind at-game content monetization platform. Nothing like it is live anywhere else in the world.
VISIT THE WEBSITE
- Creating a digital connection between fans, clubs and advertisers.
- An unparalleled level of targeting, using geo-fenced content
- High value, real-time content for fans at events
- The first of its kind in the world