Ipswich Borough Council has approved a £70,000 Halloween-themed augmented reality (AR) trail even though their last app was downloaded just 610 times, at a cost of more than £100 per download.
The big picture: The app is the second of ten augmented reality (AR) trail apps planned by Digital Ipswich, which aim to boost footfall and dwell times in the town centre.
The first of these apps, DIGBY & Beattie's Adventure Trail, struggled to gain traction, but the council argues that raw download numbers don't tell the full story of the project's impact.
Key details: £70,000 has been awarded to Spark Emerging Technologies to build the new Halloween AR trail:
The contract was awarded following an open procurement process with nine bidders.
Funding will come from the existing Ipswich Towns Fund Budget.
Sounds positive, but: Data obtained from a Freedom of Information request by Ipswich.co.uk revealed the council's first AR app, DIGBY & Beattie's Adventure Trail, failed to gain traction with residents, generating just 610 downloads at £101.40 per download:
610 total downloads
1,814 total app opens
£61,856.18 spent in total, including £38,850 designing and developing the app and website, £5,100 managing it and £5,236 promoting it
Why it matters: The £70k investment in another AR trail comes shortly after the council has announced budget cuts and funding constraints. While the Towns Deal budget funds these apps, the low adoption of the previous app raises questions about whether there could be more effective ways to deploy the funds to drive footfall in the town centre.
Council's perspective
What they're saying: In response to questions from Ipswich.co.uk, a council spokesperson provided context for the previous app's usage:
"The DiGBY and Beattie trail was developed for a very specific audience: primary school children aged between 5 years old and 11 years old. The majority of these children are highly unlikely to have mobile phones and, therefore, the downloads would be undertaken by parents/guardians to enable children to use the app."
The spokesperson added that based on their research, each download represented an average of 3.5 users (2.5 children and 1 adult), bringing the cost per user down to approximately £28.97.
However, critics will argue that this is beside the point: The app's purpose is to get more people to spend more money in the town centre—the parents, not children, achieve this.
The council also highlighted additional benefits of the trail, including:
Opportunities for students to contribute to the trail's content
Support for local businesses through marketing efforts
Reusing the app in the future will be cheaper than re-building it from scratch
Explaining the increased cost of developing the Halloween trail, the council stated: "This Halloween trail is solely for teenagers and adults - a completely different audience and design. Aimed at teenagers and adults, this app has different functionality, different types of gamification, different audience participation, different sharing mechanisms, different town locations, different partnerships and rewards, and a different marketing and comms strategy."
Looking ahead: The council says it has learned from the previous app and plans to:
Trial a longer lead-in time for future trails
Seek more media support for "accurate promotion"
Increase proactive engagement on social media
Editor's perspective
Ipswich.co.uk Editor Oliver Rouane-Williams shares his views:
OpinionThese apps are undoubtedly well-intentioned, and the council should be applauded for trying new ways to drive town centre footfall.
However, given current budgetary constraints and the fact that eight more of these apps are planned for development, questions should be asked about their effectiveness and value for money.
The £61,856 investment in Digby & Beattie's Adventure Trail app returned just 610 downloads:
How many of those downloads translated into active users?
How many made it into the town centre?
How many spent money they wouldn't otherwise have spent?
How many returned to the town centre more often after participating in the trail?
These questions are impossible to answer, but instincts tell me that the actual impact on the app's core objectives was limited.
If we assume that ten apps cost a conservative total of £750,000 to design, build, and market, and each download costs £101.40, as per the first app, that equates to just 7,396 downloads in a town of around 140,000 people.
For significantly less investment, the council could provide free transport and parking to considerably more shoppers, invest in marketing to support town centre retailers or fund more events to draw shoppers in.
Despite the council's best intentions to embrace new technologies, is it possible that more direct incentives would perhaps have a more immediate and measurable impact on footfall and spending?
Time will tell.
The bottom line: As the council moves forward with the latest investment, questions remain about whether AR trails are the most effective use of limited funds to revitalise the town centre.
However, the council maintains that these projects offer broader benefits beyond app downloads and argues that each trail is designed for repeated use, potentially increasing its value over time.
