“Mobile first, cloud first.” commented Andreas Soupliotis, CEO of Ayuda about the company’s new strategy. “Most of us use our phone and tablets more than our notebooks today. We’re thus living in a world where offering a great experience on an iPhone or iPad is more important than having a great desktop experience. We already have products like Juice and Splash that scale to devices because they use HTML5 adaptive layouts, but to really get it right, you’ve got to offer a native app.”
The Ayuda App version 1.0 includes two main functions: inventory browsing, and a Facebook-like news feed. The inventory browser includes features such as browsing locations on a map or in list view with filters for media type and sales markets, photo sheets, list rate cards, TAB OOH Ratings, and the ability to create a proposal and email it to clients. The news feed includes a Facebook-like wall that posts, in real time, relevant information on campaigns the user is tracking. The user can “follow” and “like” any piece of information they want such as: advertiser, a campaign, a location, a hold, or copy arrival. Any information on what they are following ends up on their news feed, with hashtagging support. Initially developed for iPhone, Ayuda has plans of soon releasing an iPad version with an experience that takes full advantage of retina display.
“Location-centric OOH operators will love being able to browse their own inventory on a map so easily from their phones. Consumers have great apps on their phones like Trulia for renting real estate, and we’re trying to provide that same level of fun to OOH locations. Some digital OOH locations in New York cost $150,000 a month for an 8 second spot, and sometimes the account executive takes the buyer to see the location before buying it. With the Ayuda App, the account executive can pull out their phone and show the buyer photos of past campaigns, maps, rates, TAB OOH ratings and email the client a location list or proposal right there on the spot, thus leaving a useful trail of the conversation.”
Initially targeted to be used by account executives working for OOH companies that are running the Ayuda Platform, the app acts as a placeholder for more to come. Soupliotis stated “This is just the beginning. In the coming 12 months, we’ll continually add more functionality to this app. What we would like is to one day arrive at a point where the functionality on the app has feature parity with the functionality in Juice and Splash, our core products for OOH sales, inventory and scheduling. In order to survive in a world where devices rule our lives, you need both an HTML5 Web application for notebooks and a native app for tablets and phones, and our game plan is to make both platforms equally rich in functionality as each other.” Soupliotis also compared this move to Microsoft’s decision to release Microsoft Office on the iPad: “Satya Nadella gets it – he released Office for the iPad as a companion app to Office on the desktop. We’re following a similar strategy with the Ayuda Platform by releasing this companion app.”
Soupliotis’ commented: “Mobile devices are now the primary means by which users are accessing Web sites, and the number of people using sites on mobile devices is projected to triple within the next year. Software vendors in our space have to start offering native apps on devices, or they may be faced a total re-write of their products down the road.”
The Ayuda App is being offered at no charge to existing clients, and is available for iPhone today in the Apple Appstore.
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