I’m willing to bet that a customer with brand-devotion is every liquor manufacturer’s dream. If you are one such devoted drinker and your vodka of choice is Effen, the new Effen Vodka Bar Locator app for iPhone 3GS and 4 can direct you to the closest watering hole carrying the brand.
Relying on your current location (after verifying your age, of course), the Effen app couples augmented reality with your video camera feed, which displays pop-up address bubbles of nearby Effen-selling bars and restaurants. You can filter the results by distance, or view the locations on a pinned map or in list format. Tapping on a location will provide a “bar profile,” which is nothing more than an address and phone number. Directions are not integrated in the app, and instead launch the iPhone’s native maps app. You can easily access recent locations, or search for Effen carriers by ZIP code.
I had no functional problems with the Effen app — it does what it claims, however, from a branding standpoint there’s little reason to download the app if you aren’t a devoted Effen drinker (and if you are, you probably already have regular Effen haunts). The app offers no content other than the bar locator. A quick look at Effen’s web site showed me other content, such as information on how it’s made, a written recipe section for all three of Effen’s flavors and even mixology how-to videos. This already-created content would fit perfectly in the Effen app, so I’m not sure why developers chose to keep the app so bare bones.
With the addition of more content, Effen Vodka Bar Locator would be worth imbibing, but without it, the app is forgettable.
