Smart phone apps can be strange things. I was in a pub last night and saw a couple of ladies at the bar laughing hysterically at the sounds one of their phones was making when they shook it – stock whips, shotgun blasts and the like. I made my ‘pocket sitcom’ app applaud and laugh at them on cue and they laughed and I laughed and everyone had a good time. I have one app called ‘Fart Piano’, and there’s really nothing more to it than the name of it. It’s all right there. Hours of entertainment.
I’m inherently cynical about smart phone apps that have been put out by corporations. I’m inherently cynical about marketing for a starter. But I looked at this Slurpee app, as part of a marketing push by the 7-Eleven people and I kind of get it, I can see where they’re coming from and it essentially makes sense to me. Through strange means that I needn’t go into, I’ve found myself in possession of the new Slurpee app from 7-Eleven and I decided to examine it. Call this an exercise in new media deconstruction, or just a new genre writing challenge for me, a neo-luddite, but I figured it was worth a shot. I’m clearly not the target demographic, that’s for sure and certain, but I know that the people they want to get on board the Slurpee train (can you imagine how sticky those seats would be?) will be lapping this gear up.
The inherent value in this app is the technology they’re using could be applied to any number of products or services that anyone could use. There’s limitless potential here. One feature of the app is by using a Google maps-type function to show on a map of your area where your nearest 7-Eleven store is located. I live in the CBD, so it’d probably be more useful for me to be shown where the nearest 7-Eleven isn’t located. Between them and the Pie Face outlets, I can barely see straight.
Say, for example, you have a hankering for a Ginger Beer Slurpee. I can’t imagine being in such a predicament, but there you go. The option sits there, on this app for you to hit that button, and the machine uses the GPS function to find the nearest outlet which sells that particular "flavour", down to how many metres you need to walk. It’s a genius bit of marketing for people who want their super specific icy slushy treats. There’s a Space Invaders-type game thrown in there called Slurp Attack (a term which had a different meaning when I was growing up), where by tilting your phone back and forth you can make your beverage fire small wads of its icy innards at rows of marauding aliens attacking you row by row. It could be a metaphor, but since the Slurpee is the ‘gun’ in question, I can only figure the aliens represent some abstract form of hunger or thirst. Anyhow, fun to be had there. Much of what you’ll find on the average iPhone or its ilk is a timewaser, unapologetically, and this is no exception. A fun one, let’s not deny it.
There’s also this function within the app where you need to ask the Slurpee Sensei (yeah) a yes or no question. With all the scientific wherewithal of a magic 8 ball (an item I can freely admit to owning), you shake your phone and an answer comes forth. I asked it if there were ninjas nearby and its reply was ‘Totes’. Not sure if this is an answer in the affirmative, or the ninjas were just carrying sensible shoulder bags.
But what actually impresses me is the way that this app can influence developers to incorporate the ideas into apps for other goods and services. I have an app that tells me how far away the nearest tram is, so imagine if you could open an app to show you how far you had to walk to hail the nearest available taxi? Or if a record store chain could identify which branch had the new (insert whoever your favourite band is here) CD? Or something actually useful.
Click me all over!
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