As part of my primary research, I want to do a case study into a current app which could be a potential competitor to 'Snapthat'. The app in mind for my case study is 'Screenshop' founded in 2016 by duo Mark Fisherman and Molly Hurwitz who boast strong portfolios prior to their 'Screenshop' venture. Screenshops website claims the app to be easy and to 'turn any app into inspiration' however the reviews seem to argue differently such as the first review that pops up on the app store; this is a let down in itself and things only seem to get worse. Brand ambassadors are seen to be promoting the app through sponsored posts and videos shown on how to use the app, big celebrities such as Kim Kardashian are brand ambassadors for the app which is highly expensive in terms of marketing with Kim K rumoured to charge $500,000 per sponsored post for a startup company this is exceptionally expensive. Screenshop claims to spot shoppable items through the app and using an intensively detailed algorithm to push for the users to find the garments of clothing, however, it is clear from the app is mostly unusable which is disappointing to see. Further reviews stated here;
Unfortunately, there is no other solid information on the internet about Screenshop so the further progress my research I have decided to use the app myself. I took a screen recording to show my use of the app during my time, to start with I took a screenshot of an outfit my friend Amy had uploaded to Instagram, as recommended to me by the app's instructions. Once I did this, I uploaded the image to Screenshop to see what it could pick out with me, as you can see from the video it was unsuccessful with no garments being picked out for me. From this alone, I can understand the aggravation of the app. To make sure that the app wasn't just working for clothing on the general public, I looked at images suggested to me through the app. This doesn't work either, the images offered to me with the suggested photos we not what the picture offered and I was really disappointed at this. I wanted to also use the 'brand ambassadors' as an example to see if the app could work to its full potential but as I'm sure you could image, it didn't work either!
Overall, I can see that the algorithm used for this app clearly has its faults. As an app on the market with brand advertisers such as Kim Kardashian as the face of the brand, it is disappointing to see that users are being misled. This, on top of using advertisements charging up to £500,000 and no clear sign of advertisement or revenue, at this moment in time I cant see the app being particularly sustainable. As the usage of the app is not what I am really looking at, I also wanted to look into the apps clear layout, logo and theme.
Screenshop has a clear pink and white theme with no men being used as an example of how the app works or male brand 'ambassadors' which suggests that the app is only marketed at men, something that I will not be doing with 'Snapthat', on top of this, the logo in use seems very simplistic and not that effective, which can be proven in my second survey when asking a mass of people in my target audience what they thought of Screenshops logo. Something I will work on with my experimentation is a simplistic logo which is distinguishable. Another piece of research I will take away from my research is a neutral colour tones to be used in my finale apps layout.
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