How not to sell an app
March 8th, 2012 // 5:08 pm @ Jmac
So we are now just days away from the start of the F1 season – if you didn’t know I am a MASSIVE petrolhead/F1 fan. The missus ain’t too chuffed about it, she hates formula one with a passion, but somehow I manage to get telly rights on a Sunday afternoon so I can catch the race.
There are some exciting changes happening this year, not least that F1 is now going to be shown on pay TV provider Sky. Heck, they’ve even started their own F1 channel, which from what I’ve seen is going to be very cool – 3D stuff, Full HD slow-mo playbacks, and full 5.1 surround sound, awesome! Not to mention that it’s an entire channel dedicated to the sport, so you know what channel I’m going to default to when I come home from the pub on a Friday night!
But…..BUT….something really hacks me off about this whole parade, and it’s FOM themselves. Specifically for releasing their exclusive and official track timing and positioning app. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have seen this app in the past and it looks pretty cool, but what pisses me off is that they want 20 bloody quid for it! £20! For an app!
It must rank as one of the more pricy apps in the appstore – in fact, I did a little research and the only apps up in that price bracket are specialist academic titles and satnav applications. I can understand how these are expensive because they contain proprietary intellectual property, but F1 timings? You can get that off the internet or your telly for goodness sakes!
Seriously whoever is doing their marketing is a bloody pillock. I’ve been having a think about what I would pay for it and I’d struggle to justify forking out a fiver even. I think a more sensible price is about £3.99. You know, not so cheap as to demean the high-stakes image of the sport, but not so expensive as to put off thousands of middle class, motor-racing anoraks (like me), who nowadays can no longer afford to go to the race.
The problem is, they’re thinking about this app in the context of physical merchandise, where you whack a 200% markup on the cost price, pile it high and wait for the punters. But this doesn’t work in the app store. You’ve got your strategy wrong folks, sort it out!