"Weber's app is the seminal source for grilling support. It provides deep utility from menu planning through shopping, preparation and cooking for both beginners and expert grillers." —juror Ingrid Bernstein
"This app delivers relevant info and I love how you can create and push a shopping list." —juror Hilary Read
Overview: Giving avid grillers new ways to access content and a set of tools impossible to find in the pages of a book, this application is an extension of Weber's successful branded content. It features 250 recipes, 40 recipes for rubs, sauces and marinades, over 30 step-by-step techniques with photos, 5 instructional videos, grilling guides and a timer. It's a high-quality, visually-rich cookbook, in a compact user interface, that enables users to browse recipes by category, tag favorites and create a master grocery list. Instead of building them into the application, videos and images with large file sizes are pulled from a Web server, keeping the application size small.
• Launched through an e-mail campaign to Weber's large customer list, the app quickly moved to the top of the list in the Lifestyle category. Within weeks of launch, it reached number 24 in all paid apps and stayed within the top 30 for 6 weeks. It has a 4.5 star user rating.
• On the Grill was selected by Apple to featured in national print advertising, on the homepage of the app store and featured in iTunes e-mail blasts.
• Revenue greatly exceeded development costs, making the app profitable for the client.
Comments by Chris Armijo and Christina Schroeder:
Was the topic/subject of the project a new one for you? "No. As Weber's branded content agency, we've produced a series of best-selling branded cookbooks for them. This gave us a deep understanding of food-related content and how the reader uses it, which drove the information design and the interface."
How did your relationship with the client evolve over the course of the project? "We all knew we were charting new territory. The client completely trusted our lead, and our ability to create a product that would be as highly regarded as the other branded content we'd produced in the past. Post launch, the success of the app in the iTunes store, Apple's support of it in its national advertising, and the ability to penetrate new media channels that hadn't been explored before deepened our relationship with our client."
What would you do differently if you could start the project over? "Immediately plan for international versions. In today's environment, it's easy enough for customers to look across the border and see products that aren't available to them. And while it is good to be wanted, if we were to do this over today, we would launch with international versions at the same time we launched the U.S. version."
