Happy

User Profile Page
Sign Up
Information about the Flash Drink Special - Click "GO" to Receive Questions
Required Questions User Must Answer - AB InBev Determines These Questions Based on Marketing Research Needs
User Receives Secret Code to Get Discount
Bar Manager Activates Special
Bar Chooses Special

Executive Summary:

Wouldn’t it be nice if AB InBev could have real time analytics on why, where, and how consumers drink alcohol? With Happy, we can provide AB InBev with actionable contextual data that drivers drinking behavior.

Through our application, we will be able to provide AB InBev with the data their marketing team needs to create targeted ad campaigns, increase the accuracy of product and market development assumptions, and a better understanding of future trends

Market Problems:

After talking with key members of the Zx Ventures team(Patrick, Eli, Sharon, James), we quickly identified the challenges they faced. We firmly believe, AB InBev should not be held hostage by the three tier system. As the leading producing of alcoholic beverages in the world, AB InBev will not be able to effectively market new brand acquisitions, forecast trends, or enter new markets if they are unable to understand consumer consumption behavior.

In order to solve this problem, we need to quickly and cheaply acquire consumers to use an engaging mobile application and provide bars with a mobile application that allows them to draw in new customers so we can deliver data to AB InBev.

Solution:

As mentioned above, we need to first provide a reason for consumers and bars to use our mobile apps.

Our Bar Value Proposition:

Not all bars are created equal but every bar understands they lose money when a bar stool is empty. Weather, sports events, location and bar identify are just a few variables that influences bar capacity.

What if a bar manager had the ability to push on demand notifications of Flash Drink Specials to people who use the Happy app? These specials could range from half off domestics, drafts, or whatever the bar manager feels would incentivise the users to come to the bar.

The bar manager would choose what the special is, how long the special lasts, an inputs a secret password that the consumers would have to tell the bartender in order to receive the special.

This dynamic pricing model gives the bar manager the ability engage and acquire customers quickly. Without this model, there is a strong chance they would not be able to increase stool capacity.

Our Consumer Value Proposition:

Who dosen’t like a good deal! Consumers are inherently price conscience for the first couple drinks especially if they are discovering a new bar. With Happy, users are able to identify and find local bars who are willing to offer Flash Drink Specials and give the bar a heads up they are coming.

How It Works:

As a User, I sign up using facebook, so it is easy.
As a User, I use Happy app to find local on-demand drinks specials that are near me based on GeoFencing so I can find a good deal.
As a User, I select the bar special and click I’m coming.
As a User, the app asks me why I’m coming (birthday, business happy hour, date, sports game, etc) so I can receive a the secret code to get drink specials. (The purpose of this is to collect contextual data that AB InBev finds valuable. AB InBev determines the questions. This is the secret sauce.)
As a User, I arrive at the bar and tell the bartner the secret code and receive a discount
As a User, I close the app
As a User, the next time I open the app, I will be asked to rate my experience at ABC bar. (On the backend, we are able to use the Google Reviews API to create a positive or negative correlation about the user's’ experience and the keywords associated with ABC bar based on previous reviews. This will influence future recommendations.)

Our Value to AB InBev:

Our application will acquire consumer demographic data, consumption behavior, and experience based on the overall context of the user's experience in real time.

Data will be displayed in real time on a dashboard for the AB InBev team to analyze and distribute to key stakeholders. Current data can include: name, age, gender, location, timestamp of engagement, device, preferred choice of beer, drinking occasion, bar choice, and amount of people on drinking occasion. Additional data points will come from the questions AB InBev chooses to ask users.

The questions the users must answer before they receive their discount will be developed by AB InBev. These questions can be updated at any time and pushed to target users. For example, female drinkers will receive different questions than male drinks.

Market Opportunity For AB InBev:

Real time consumer data is the ultimatum for an organization to better understand their market position and centralize efforts that yield the highest ROI.

Happy will provide AB InBev to do the following to increase overall ROI.

Increasing the accuracy and effectiveness of marketing efforts.
Understand the correlation between consumer demographics and their choice of beer.
Understand what contextual data is associated with key events that trigger positive consumption experiences.
An analytics platform they can license to bars so bars better understand how to increase sales, reduce waste and stay ahead of the trends.
Improve the effectiveness of product development efforts by seeing potential future trends according to an array of data points.

Every question that the users of the Happy App answer will be developed by AB InBev Marketing, Product and/or Innovation Teams. The AB InBev teams will be able to use the standard FB user data (gender, age, etc) to better target how, why, and what influences specific consumer segments to drink beer.

The ability to acquire more and more information about the users is unlimited but we were restricted by time. We did not have time to develop the dashboard that would allow the AB InBev team drill down users based on data and develop the questions that would be targeted to those specific groups.

How to Go To Market:

Happy would target signal neighborhoods in NYC and get bars onboard. This concentrated approach would allow us to quickly acquire users and test if this mobile application is effective and scalable for users and bars.

Team:

Sandy Barnabas is an ex Google manager who specializes in machine learning, recommendation algorithms and is a full stack developer.

Jordan Leahy is the cofounder of a mobile and web software company that specializes in healthcare development.

Hang Xu is UX designer at Dom and Tom.

Wayne Murphy is a senior Android Developer

Our Technology:

AWS, Google Maps API, Places API, Ionic (mobile app)

What's next for Happy

Launch a landing page and start inviting bars to sign up.
Complete our mobile MVP and data visualization dashboard for the AB InBev team.
After X bars sign up, launch to the public.
Bar and user testing to improve experience.
After 3 Month beta program, if results warrant further develop the team would re-evaluate it's goals.