What Happens When Your App Gets Featured on a National Morning Show…and it Doesn’t Work

Short answer: downloads will still go up.

Last week, Speak Chic was featured as the “App of the Week” on Sunrise on Channel 7. Sunrise is known as “Australia’s number one breakfast show” and the piece ran during Mercedes-Benz Australian Fashion Week.

This was also the first piece of live TV for the app, so it was kind of a big deal.

During the product demo, co-host Samantha Armytage forgot to un-mute the volume on her iPad…and hilarity ensued.

How do I know it was the volume? Because it’s the #1 customer support request that I answer from Speak Chic users.

The good part of is that her snafu made for really funny and engaging television. The bad part…it was at the expense of the app and potential users who might think that the app might not work properly.

But let’s look at the numbers:

Speak Chic was on screen for 2.5 minutes. That’s 2.5 minutes of free, uninterrupted coverage on a national television show.

The early morning weekend show drew ratings of about 319,000 viewers in real-time (source: TV Tonight) and the clip was also posted to Yahoo! 7 TV with an estimated 50K uniques per day. On that single day, the app was seen by 369,000 potential viewers, but having the clip archived online forever is going to be the gift that keeps on giving.

Results

• 34% increase in new users from Australia
• Australian users overtook users from other countries by about 15:1
• More than 54% of Australian users had a session with the app within the last 7 days

 
I also saw a jump in the number of unsolicited media placements.
 
Do I wonder what the results would have been if the app had actually worked? Sure, but even with a major clusterf*ck on live TV, downloads remain strong and I’m continuing to see a significant number of new users come from Australia.

All press really is good press.