Barclaycard can lay claim to having the worlds most downloaded, branded, iPhone app ever – at least according to AdAge. The Waterslide Extreme app has had ovr 4 million downloads in the 3 weeks since it launched in mid July. As of today (6th Aug 2009) it has 2 1/2 stars and 15,485 ratings in the App Store. This breaks the previous record that was held by VW for their New polo app that was released back in March.
So what’s the app actually like? Is it any good?
Well, it’s OK. The Baclaycard branding on it is very subtle, only appearing on the menu screens and not in the main game at all. It does however have a good assosciation with the current ads, which I guess is the idea. The game itself is simple, you choose your character, slide down the waterslide avoiding crabs and ducks and trying to hit bonus items. There are 9 levels and I got through the first 4 within 5 minutes when I got too bored to carry on. So it’s not the deepest of entertainment apps, nor is it going to bring anything useful to your life. Would you ever consider paying for it? No. Does it make me feel warm and fuzzy about BarclayCard? No. But it has reached over 4 million people, which is absolutely phenomenal and it has got quite a lot of people talking about BarclayCard and their ad campaign.
Given how much this app would’ve cost as a percentage of the campaign budget I’d say it was well worth it for BarclayCard and Dare, the agency that had the balls and nouse to see the potential. I just wish that more brands would come up with ideas like these and make them just a little bit more engaging.
Read the AdAge article here http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=138293
