Zippo Event Photo App

Problem:

Allow staff member to take photos at 15 different tour events
Must have signature area for multiple participants to sign to allow Zippo to use their photo
Must be fast to operate and seamless (no long loading or unloading)
App to be used with iPads
Unable to use iTunes
Needs to work without internet
Needs to organize photos into specific event locations

Hypothesis:

Make a cached web-app with a form, signature and photo upload

Client Info:

Manufacturer of over 500 million lighters since 1933

Zippo was putting on an event tour called “Encore” where country musicians would play to a western audience. They had a photo booth setup with outrageous western themed props for participants to get fun photos taken and avoid the hassle of gathering their friends around in a drunken stumble to get a memorable shot. On top of this booth there was an incentive to post it on social media for a chance to win delightful swag. In return, Zippo garnered lots of new followers and free guerilla marketing by their new loyal brand ambassadors.

Timeline

The project had some hard guidelines. Most importantly it couldn’t go on the App Store due to the extremely tight deadline. I realized the best way to do this would be to create a website, add in code to initiate caching when viewed and have the user “save to homescreen” the website itself. This took quite a lot of research in dealing with app caching practices.

The power of the Cached Web App

The end project was a small website so it was fast loading and seamless. The signature would save out to the iPads’ photo library as back up but also save alongside the form data in the cached database. The second step would be the actual photo file. This was done with a simple iOS code similar to an attached file on a website. Instead the button limited the attachment to be an image so that when the Zippo employee tapped the button it would pop-up a screen to attach an image in the iPad photo library. On this pop-up there is also the option to “take new photo” which was then used by the Zippo employee to take the group photo. This photo saved to the cached app database as well as the iPad photo library as a backup. As a failsafe the signatures and images were still on the iPad in the photo gallery.

Post-show Analytics

Customers were emailed their photo along with a promotional incentive to post it on social media with the hashtag #zippoencore. I had a trick up my sleeve for Zippo postings as well. Each iPad had Dropbox installed and lied to the iPad photo app. That Dropbox then was linked to the backend admin of the website with an embed code. Zippo’s content marketing team then logged into the backend portal to see all of the photos, chose what they wanted to post on the official Zippo account and then immediately post in real-time, knowing that the forms were signed to rightfully do so.

Summary

Thousands of people got their photos from the emails when the iPads were brought to an internet source. Photos posted on social media received millions of views across the country. Zippo was trending and people loved the brand identity.

Sales were made and fun was had. Mission accomplished.