Local startup Aware3 and industry leader VML recently teamed up to build an app for a major client – Southwest Airlines.
The partnership between VML, which is based in Kansas City, and the up-and-coming mobile app developer was facilitated by Digital Sandbox KC.
“We know agencies have clients asking about mobile,” Aware3 co-founder Tony Caudill said in a release. “By leveraging our platform, they are able to quickly and cost-effectively launch a customized app for their client that would have otherwise taken a significant investment of time and dollars.”
A longtime VML client, Southwest Airlines wanted a mobile app that would draw attention to the agenda of an upcoming internal marketing conference and encourage attendance at its breakout sessions. Aware3 and VML joined forces to deliver what the client wanted and more – including a scavenger-hunt feature built into the app that captivated the conference’s hundreds of attendees.
“We identified six people and six locations where people could ‘check in’ through a QR code,” Caudill said of the app. “The idea was to drive engagement in the conference.”
Mission accomplished, said VML account director Kristen Boulware.
“I was one of the designated people/clues and, I have to tell you, I have never met so many people in my life at one conference,” Boulware said. “Everyone was so into the scavenger hunt and loved the app.”
Aware3 wants to build on the Southwest Airlines experience to attract more business.
“We hope to use this as a credential to position our company with VML and other agencies in the future,” Caudill said.
Jeff Shackelford, director of Digital Sandbox KC, appreciates how Aware3 and other “small, agile entrepreneurial firms have a lot to offer the corporate community,” he said. “They can create quickly and efficiently, filling gaps and solving problems for larger companies and their clients. What’s unique and great about Kansas City is the ability to quickly and easily connect some our biggest corporate entities with young, early-stage entrepreneurs.”
