Well, obviously we do disagree, but I can assure you that I have had completely different experiences. This kind of conversation comes up with people I talk to at least once a week, and often more than that. Of course there is the argument that we talk with different types of people, but the majority of our team were behind this idea, so I would presume that they have had similar experiences to myself.


Thanks for your positive comments. In terms of our target market, I think anyone who likes to eat high-quality organic at reasonable prices. I appreciate that that sounds a little bit like a cop-out because I haven't said a specific group. I suppose if I was to consider which social group we might attract in the first instance, I'd imagine it to be mid-thirties, professional, well-educated people, but I really don't want to stereotype. I'd like to turn the idea that only white, middle-aged, middle-class people go for these sorts of things into a myth, because I think it can be really. If you grow up eating junk, that's all you know, but no matter what your background, if you experience really good food you'll know what it is.

Can I ask another questions?

For a task that Lord Sugar placed emphasis on creativity do you think a mass market "high quality food" and "good service" as the main USPs are creative enough? I'm only asking because 99% of restraunts in the UK use it in their advertising campaigns.

Thanks in advance.

Okay, I think I understand you now.

I would say that we are are restaurant that serves 'multi-cultural' food really. There isn't a limit on the sort of culture we go for. I appreciate that this is a huge risk in terms of opening a new joint, but ultimately we felt it was more important to cater something that would make people leave thinking that they really enjoyed that meal, than to categorise ourselves into something that people either really do or really do not fancy.

I don't think we've lacked creativity. We used our creative skills to create a restaurant that I can guarantee anyone on this thread could come to and really have a nice evening. At the same time, we didn't want to just be different for the sake of being different. Of course the majority of restaurants use that in their advertising campaigns, but does that equate to leaving them and thinking about how much you enjoyed your meal? It often does not. Obviously I can't serve you any of this food as we're on the Internet, but if I could I think you would see that our USPs stand up whereas they may not with other restaurants.

Hi guys! Just finished reading your pitch!

I think your idea is admirable, focusing on mainly eco-friendly, British produce, but apart from being super-green, what exactly is your selling point? You're right that there is an ever-increasing trend where consumers are more aware of where their food comes from, but how will this be enough to hook people?

Also, I think the idea of inviting 12 random members of the public to come to your restaurant is nice in theory, but has been very poorly executed in your pitch. Firstly, your scouting locations are a little bizarre. Finding people from malls and cinemas is fine, but an indie music festival just seems quite random. Why was this chosen in place of somewhere that's likely to have a more diverse group of people like a city centre? Secondly, having all the lucky people you picked turn up at the restaurant only for some of them to lose the draw and be turned away with only a coupon is likely to make them furious. I know I would be, and I don't know if I would consider your restaurant in future afterwards.

Hi David! Glad you liked our pitch.

Ultimately, I think our selling points work better in practice than they do in a description on a forum. It has become clear throughout this pitch that people are not hugely convinced, which is a shame but I can understand how that has come about. With regards to our selling point, there isn't really anything I can say that hasn't already been said, which is high-quality and enjoyable food; good service where the customers feel valued (I often don't in restaurants); and the knowledge that we are an ethical company. As I said, I can see why that may not entirely come together on a web page and perhaps that is something that we should have considered more thoroughly, but ultimately, I think the whole team are confident that this restaurant will work. We may have received criticism for it, but a lot of the critics have started off by suggesting that they like our overall concept and that they would come and eat at Inspired Choices.

With regards to the launch party, I already said in my response to the other David that these are good points. There were probably some issues in the way that we planned that out, and all I can say is that we will take that feedback on board and use it within our plans for promotion.

Thanks George. To me creativity is about inventing something new and unique to what's already existing in the marketplace and I'm just not sure if a customer would stop going to a restraunt they already use and enjoy the food but instead switch to yours which offers something similiar to them and the majority of your competitors. You've said that the eco-friendly bit isn't the main way to attract new customers but I'm not totally convinced your main USP offering traditional already existing meals similiar to what's already out there is creative.

Well, the team disagree, but I respect your opinion.

Hi Team, again congratulations on a very good pitch.

I do agree with you that there is an increased interest in sustainable ingredients and ethically sourced food but like some of the others posting on the thread, I too am skeptical that there is enough of an interest in this to merit a restaurant's entired USP being based on this idea? Do you not agree that your insistence on this aspect has led to a slightly lackluster mish-mash of dishes on the menu. Very few of the dishes on the menu strike me as being particularly unique, in fact a lot of them e.g. Lasagne and Thai Green Curry are quite standard dishes in most restaurant menus. Do you feel like the menu is unique enough to attract customers?

Furthermore, whilst I appreciate that you are trying to promote ethically sourced ingredients at a reasonable price, do you not agree that the pricing is quite inconsistent? Lasagne for example, does not strike me as something that would merit the same price as Beef Wellington.

I also wondered whether you could possibly tell me how you plan to keep up with the competition? Many restaurants nowadays offer early bird options and deals such as '2 Courses for £10.95 etc.), there's no mention of any such deals with your restaurant so how would you ensure that you can compete with restaurants offering such deals?

Finally, do you think it's seriously feasible for a show on the main British television channel to feature a restaurant opening in London? Restaurants open all the time, what is it about your restaurant that you believe would be enough to interest a television show such as this to dedicate a feature to the restaurant's opening?

Hi Kevin, and thank you for your questions.

I agree that some of our dishes are quite standard for restaurants, but not all of them are. When was the last time you saw mushroom, stilton and spinach pie on a restaurant menu, for instance? The dishes are the ones that initially we thought that people would go for, but we have backup choices and other things that we can potentially change them with if the situation calls for it.

At the time we designed the menu, the pricing made sense, and we believe that the vast majority of our products are appropriately priced. However, we do appreciate that there may be a few minor inconsistencies, which we will iron out in time.

We did bring up a competition that we were going to offer, concerning free desserts for the uploaders of the best ecological pictures on our Facebook page. That is one such example of such a deal. But you've made a very good point that that could be expanded even more, and that is definitely something that we will consider for the future.

I think that our association with Compassion In World Farming makes our restaurant very notable. Compassion is a very well-known charity - I myself receive numerous emails about their campaigns every week - and that will be a talking point for such programmes as that, although we will probably wait until we have been open for at least a few months before that sort of campaign takes off to its highest extent.

Thank you for answering my questions

No worries, Kevin.

I just want to address Tyjet's point about the random draw, the winners DO get invited to the launch party, 12 people, 6 winners + they bring 1 person with them so 12. The OTHER hundreds of people who picked balls and LOST will get a discount, to motivate them to come and try our restaurant.

Bumping for Team Inspired's pitch for Task 3.

Introduction:

Good evening everyone and welcome to the introduction of our smartphone application – ‘Sing Something’! Gaming applications seem to have a foothold over the application industry as the top selling applications along with social media and music applications in second and third place respectively. Thus we came up with Sing Something – a unique which blends the three most popular genres of the application world together into one simple and fun gaming application. A cousin to the popular games – Pictionary and Charades, this application does not have you guessing for people, buildings or movies from people’s actions or drawings but songs from what they sing! A wonderful way to encourage interactivity – this application can be used in a variety of social situations from a family dinner, to a night out with friends, to a day spent in the comfort of home. We thought the name ‘Sing Something’ is particularly appropriate as it sounds casual, simple and fun which is literally what the app is all about.

How It Works:

How it works would be simple but fun. You make a gaming account on Game Center as you would do with any other gaming application. You then make an individual username specific to your Sing Something account and then you are ready to start playing.

The gameplay is also straightforward. First of all, you choose what genre of music you and your friends would like sing in such as contemporary pop. Then you choose how many rounds you want to play in your 'match-up' - a set of rounds essentially. A random number generator will decide the turn order. When the round begins, the starting player chooses a song from an A-Z list songs in that genre from our database. Then they sing the song into the mic of their smartphone. They can obtain lyric help from the ‘lyrics’ icon. On every other person’s screen, there will be a notepad where they can write down the song they think the player is singing. They each have unlimited guesses. For the player who gets it right, they will gain a point and a 10 second clip of the music itself will start playing in the background for them. It then moves on the next player and so on until the round finishes where it goes back to the starting player. This continues until the rounds end and a winner is found. If there is a tie, more rounds will be added on until a winner is found.

The Packages:

We will have two versions for the application – a limited version for free and a full version for £1.49. The limited version will allow anyone to play with facebook friends but the full version would allow anyone from around the world to play or allow anyone to play via wireless connection along with various other features.

The limited version will include:
1) Players only being able to choose up to ten rounds of play.
2) Facebook connectivity – allowing you to play with facebook friends only.
3) Players can only select from three genres – contemporary pop, R&B and throw-back 80s and 90s.

The full version will include:
1) Players being able to choose an unlimited number of rounds of play.
2) Facebook connectivity – allowing you to play with Facebook friends.
3) Players can sing songs from many different genres in addition to the three already present in the app – indie, synth/dance, soul, classical, jazz, throw-back 60s, throw-back 70s and even freestyle where players can any sing from our database.
4) A ratings feature – allowing players to rate each other’s singing ability out of 10 after their turn. An average rating and world rating would be established, allowing friends/family/players all over the world to compare their singing ability.
5) World connectivity – allowing people to play online with players who have the app all over the world.
6) Network connection connectivity – playing at a party or at a family dinner? Then you can also simply use the internet connection to connect with each other and play.

Pricing:

For the limited version, we have decided to make it free. We believe that it would be good for people to get an idea of how addictive and unique our concept is, as well as seeing how much better it could be with additional features and connectivity. For the full version, we have decided on the cost of £1.49 because of the additional connectivity and features. As well as that, most lower-cost games cost in this region. We also want this unique idea reaching out to as many people as possible so we want to make this affordable and easily obtainable.

The application itself only needs notepad (to jot down the name of the song), a few icons on the screen for each player, a lyrics help icon and a ratings icon (for the full version). Therefore, from a programming angle this application is relatively simple, understandable and low cost. Hardware-wise all the application uses is the in-built microphone in any smartphone device and an internet connection. So the application is perfectly feasible to make and design.

Logo:

Our Sing Something Logo

We believe that this logo is very appropriate for our application and what it stands for. The cartoon picture with the teenage girl and guy on headphones emphasises the singing and musical aspect of this app. The colour palette is suitably quite neutral which fits in with our unisex target demographic – appealing to younger age groups such as teenagers as well as families. And finally the whole cartoon style of the logo fits in with the styles used in the designs of the best-selling gaming applications such as Angry Birds and Minecraft. Our designer Emma goes on to say ‘I think the logo captures the target demographic well along with the casual and musical nature of the app’.

Advert:

A scene starts with a family of 5 – a kid daughter, a teenage son, a father, a mother, and a lovable grandmother. An overhead voice starts speaking:

“Hi there, want to know what’s right for you? Want to sing with your Facebook friends at any time? Want an entertaining game to play with friends on a night out? Want the latest fun thing to do with the family after dinner? Or feeling bored staying at home alone? Look no further than Sing Something - an app to rekindle interest in life”.

The scene starts playing out:
The kid daughter presses the Sing Something app icon on her phone and joins a contemporary pop match-up,
She starts singing Skyscraper by Demi Lovato,
She gets cut off as the mother calls for her,
The father passes by,
He listens to music coming through the headset,
He decides to play, presses the app’s icon on his phone and joins a rock match-up on the game,
He starts singing Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin,
He is also interrupted as his teenage son calls for him,
The mother passes by,
She decides to join a throwback 80s and 90s match-up and starts singing Waterfalls by TLC
She stops as her husband suddenly calls for her,
The teenage son passes by,
He also picks up his phone and joins an indie song match-up, he sings Pompeii by Bastille and then gets called by the grandmother.

“Sing Something is literally about being able to sing any song. There’s pop for the kids and teenagers, indie for the young adults, throw-back 90s and 80s for the elderly and many, many more with the full version of the app. Just select any one of genre tags on your app and you’ll be able to sing any song in that genre!”

The final scene shows the grandmother passing by the teenage son,
She looks at the app as if it’s foreign,
Then she joins a match-up herself,
She joins a contemporary R&B tunes match-up (by mistake),
S&M by Rihanna starts playing and she looks horrified,
We cut to the logo and where you can find the app.

The overhead voice speaks one final time “Sing Something - sing any song anywhere with anyone”.

The scene flashes back one final time to the grandmother,
And she is jumping around singing S&M.

End of Advert

Our Target Demographic:

In this day and age, to have a well-defined target market is extremely important due to the current state of our economy. To have a definitive target market can have even the smallest of businesses competing with the largest.

Our target market is aimed towards teenagers and young adults as studies show they are the majority of app users. They would also naturally fall under our demographic of having a singing-based game, especially with the Facebook connectivity. The appearance and competitive aspect of the app also give it a more youthful-orientated appeal. However, this isn’t to say that the older generations are excluded as the application does include music from all ages, such as the 80s and 90s, which those older age groups will be able to enjoy as our advert shows. Thus families are also a viable market for the application, as both children and parents would be able to enjoy the app.

In terms of gender, a singing application would probably seem to attract mainly a female demographic. However, the fact that it is also a social media and gaming application extends the gender appeal to include males. Research shows that in fact more males download gaming applications than females and that social media applications are usually inherently unisex. It even suggests that singing is becoming more popular with males (especially acoustic guitar music) and seen less as a ‘female-only thing’.

Having a specific target market does not mean we intend to exclude people that do not fit our ‘criteria’, but rather to simply allow us to focus on those who are most likely to play our app than other apps. Therefore, to summarise, the app will have unisex appeal and mainly target teenagers and young adults, but the easy, accessible nature of the app and the variety of genres it employs means that the application can cross over to many other potential markets and age groups.

What Makes Our App Unique Compared To Other Apps?

‘Sing Something’ is an original and unique idea. It differentiates itself to other apps for a variety of reasons. First off is the fact that it combines the three most popular genres of the app world – social media, gaming and music into one innovative application. On the social media aspect, it is also different because it is a game which encourages huge interactivity by allowing connectivity with Facebook friends, via a local network connection or via global connectivity – essentially anyone with the app. The ratings feature of the full version of the app is also unique – allowing people from all around the world to compare their singing ability with an average rating based out of 10. This also promotes a competitive nature to the application based off a variety of different singing genres which is another idea which is endemic to Sing Something.

Also the ease of playing the game in any social situation makes this a particularly special app. It can be played at a dinner party, a family gathering, a sleep over, a night out with friends, over a morning cup of coffee or even simply in the comfort of your own home. Most of all, I think what makes our application particularly different to the rest is the huge market that we have identified for the app as we have pointed out earlier. While we are focusing on teenagers and young adults, our throwback 80s and 90s genres and straightforward gameplay mean that many age groups can easily access and enjoy the app.

The combined multiplayer, interactive and creative nature of Sing Something makes this an application that will stand the test of time and occupy a permanent place on your tabs.

Why Would People Be Interested In Buying It?

There are many reasons why people would want to download this application. First off, there is a huge entertainment value to simply singing the song equivalent to the entertainment of acting out a particular role in Charades. They would also find the multiplayer and the huge interactive aspect quite appealing as it is an excellent medium to have a casual and enjoyable time with friends and family. The fact it can be used in a variety of social situations means that unlike Doodle Jump or Angry Birds which can only really play by yourself and when you are alone; you can play Sing Something literally anywhere you would like to at your own convenience, in the presence of family or friends. There is also the fact that people will be able to gauge their singing ability through the ratings system and they can enjoy the competitive satisfaction that comes with increasing their average ‘world ranking’. It is also a great way to learn about new music through other people singing those songs. The fact that there is a limited free version also makes the basic concept easily accessible to anyone - so the question then becomes 'why not get it?'

From the entertaining game angle, to the social element, to learning about your own singing ability and new music, people would have a multitude of reasons to get this app.

To Summarise:

We hope you have enjoyed the evening and the pitch for our innovative and unique app, Say Something – an app which not only combines the best of social media, gaming and musical aspects of the app world but also achieves this in a simple yet effective way. As mentioned before this is an app targeted towards younger consumers but really it has a huge potential market – anyone who enjoys music, gaming or simple interactivity with other people would enjoy this app a lot. We think this is an innovative, creative and potentially a breakthrough idea, and we hope you all think so too.

'Sing Something - sing any song anywhere with anyone!'

As a team we would just like to say thank you all once again for taking the time to listen to our pitch. We hope you have enjoyed it as much as we have enjoyed making it with each other in our wonderful team. Please feel free to ask us any questions.

Hello Inspired :3

I have two questions. Firstly, the appeal of Draw Something is that you can do it on the bus or the train and no one will know. I personally would be uncomfortable singing into my mobile in public, so do you see this as an app that would only be practical for users in their bedrooms?

Secondly, Draw Something works due to the graphical capabilities of most smartphones, and you could even do it while concentrating on something else, but sound is a different matter altogether. Do you really see tinny, abbreviated song clips as having widespread appeal, given what most people hear IRL is completed different to what comes out of a phone microphone?

Hi Team Inspired. Firstly well done on the presentation, I think the TV advert in particular is well designed and would appeal to your target audience of families and gets the message of the purpose of your app across nicely. I also like the merging of music, gaming and social media. However that said…

1. Do you realistically think that people would pay £1.49 (which is quite expensive for an app considering the majority are free) for your app? Considering many people could go onto Youtube and find the songs for free and sing them down the phone to their friends for free. How would you counteract this problem and encourage people to buy your product instead of essentially the free version of Youtube?

2. Do you think maybe other alternative pricing might be better for example, making the app free and charging companies to advertise on your app to increase your revenues so that more people buy your app yet you also make money through selling advertising space? (I’m aware you didn’t include this but do you think that it could be an option?)

Thanks in advance.

Hi Inspired,

Great pitch, very well structured and easy for me to read. Just a couple of things that I want to ask you about:

1. For the limited version, why only go for those particular genres? I can see how they would suit your target market, but there's a lot of older people on Facebook and they could struggle with those genres. I think you could have had slightly more variety there.

2. Slightly contradictory to point 1, why only Facebook friends initially? It seems as though you'd need the full version to play with family. Added on to that, there's a lot of people who might be interested in the app, but not necessarily have Facebook (I'm not just talking about older people here, some of your target market don't have it either).

3. I'm not sure on how well your advert would come across, it seems very stop-start and more focused on individuals in a family playing against other individuals, as opposed to a family playing together.


Just to add, I really like the app and I would probably play it myself, but I think you may have limited yourselves a bit in some respects.

Hi Alex, firstly thank you for taking the time out to ask our team some questions. I would be happy to clarify on these areas for you.

1) Not at all, we promote the app use in a variety of social situations as we mentioned in our unique selling point section. The annoying aspect about most app games is that they can only be played by yourself like Doodle Jump or Fruit Ninja for example, so our app is by definition is different to these games by being a multiplayer game. And as a multiplayer game you can connect to any one of your friends or anyone around the world with the full version. So in theory whether it be in public or not you can easily use this application in parties, nights out with friends, family gatherings, weddings without fear of 'disturbing' or 'annoying' anyone in potentially awkward situations in these instances quite easily. The difficulty with Draw Something is that it may potentially be seen as an anti-social game in these examples in particular.

In the wider picture, I think Sing Something has some value in promoting confidence. In the age old saying - people are always getting nervous about singing in front of others. This application encourages you to laugh, joke and feel more comfortable about it especially with the rating features and interactivity with friends. So unlike Draw Something you would by nature take the experience less seriously and more comfortable;y whether it be in the bus or in the bedroom.

2) A smartphone's sound capabilities may not match the quality of Vevo or 480p videos but most cameras cannot even achieve such quality. However, what can be said of smartphones is their ability to allow you to clearly discern sound. So while it may not record as well, it is still possible to gauge and assess a person's singing ability from the way they sing in the app. For example, there are many videos of people recording concerts on their smartphones and while the picture quality may not be great - you can still quite easily make out tune, vocals and the song that the artist is singing.

I hope that has answered your questions.

Hi there, thank you for questions.


The genres that were picked out in the advert were highlights of what genres the app has to offer, there are loads more on show that a person can be able to search and pick for free in the trial version.


Well, some of us may be aware that some people don't have Facebook, we only thought of Facebook as a social starting point before moving onto other sites where people may have accounts for and have forum sites post up adverts leading to our app as the next step.

I'm not sure what you mean by the third question as most of the advert scene was Shadi's idea with my short speeches added so he might be able to answer your question on that.

I hope I've answered your questions.

Hi Katie I am glad you like the application and have enjoyed the presentation. I am happy to answer a few questions regarding the price scheme for you.

1) a) The £1.49 Price - I think that £1.49 is hugely competitive as most new games (games which have been released in the past month) such as Zombie Commando start at this price, many others like Broken Sword 5 and Secret Files Tunguska actually cost far more at £2.99, so I think our app is hugely competitive with what's currently new in the gaming app market while still giving good value off the app. Current highest charted games like Tipping Point and Monument Valley are actually priced at £1.49, so our price matches that. Also most free apps are the utility based ones; most popular games like Minecraft, Angry Birds and Doodle Jump do have a price. So our pricing scheme actually satisfies the overall market well.

1)b) Why not Youtube? Firstly, trying to replicate such an experience via Youtube would not lend itself to a social media game or a game at all - encouraging a set of participants to play against each other in a feasible, quick and easy way. This would be difficult to achieve on Youtube. Also there is a huge competitive nature to our game with the ratings system and the ability to compare scores with people all around the world. There is also the huge interactivity involved where you can compete against anyone around the world which cannot be done on Youtube. So from an entertaining gaming standpoint, the competitive and interactive aspect and the simplicity of use, our app would be more appealing to use than to try to replicate the experience in some way off Youtube.

2) Advertising Schemes - We already have an advertising scheme in place and that is our two versions of the app. The limited scheme is completely free and will be used to promote the unique aspects of our idea and essentially give a taster of what it would be like with more features and more connectivity. This will encourage consumers to buy the full version which has many more additional features. I think this would be a better method of pricing than having companies advertise. As we want this game to be simple, fun and casual for people to use and advertisements may disrupt that. Also due to the nature of the app and the simplicity of the notepad background in how it would look - it would be bad from an aesthetic and utility point of view to include advertisements.

I hope that answers some of your questions Katie.

Thanks, that answers them all.

I've sent Lord Sugar my vote. Good luck to you and the rest of the team.

Hey Team Inspired

Well the game is certainly unique but I do wonder why you guys have gone with something like singing as you have to be quite confident to sing into a microphone to complete strangers over the world, I can't see many people doing that so what will you do to make people feel more comfortable if they can only do this?
Another thing is that aren't you gonna have to pay a lot of musicians for using your songs so I can understand the 1.39 price but a lot of apps which have this type of thing (in terms of playing music) usually cost a good amount of money (around 3.99) as I have quite a few tab apps on my phone which are around that price (and those are the good ones). So are you going to avoid copyrighted material or will you go for the copyrighted material and if so do you think you should change the price of your game because of this?

BIB: It states in the first part of your pitch that the limited version only has 3 genres to choose from - contemporary pop, r 'n' b, and throwback 80s and 90s. This was what I was getting at in my first question - an older person may struggle with those genres (depending on what you mean by r 'n' b). Perhaps you could have included soul, jazz or rock in there. Whilst the 3 you picked would be fine for your specified target market (I'd be good on all 3), I think you could have had a broader range maybe.

As for your second part, there are ways of getting around that without the need to be on Facebook/social networking - I just feel that you have potentially alienated a section of your target audience by making it Facebook-only.

The advert, what I meant by that is it's a bit repetitive, and stop-start (play a bit, then leave, cut to next person and repeat). As you say it can be played by families and your advert features a family, I would have thought that you may have had them all playing against each other in the same 'match-up', it seemed more focused on individual play rather than group play.