We experienced a nice bit of experiential marketing recently when we entertained our good friends and clients from Toyota at a swanky new restaurant called Australasia based in Spinningfields, Manchester.

The twist was that the wine list was actually an app on an iPad. It allowed us to interact with the list, searching by region, cost or grape variety, before selecting our choice to order it from the waiter. It certainly added to the novelty of the occasion, and definitely felt in keeping with the upmarket decor of this visually impressive new restaurant.

The app was a big hit with our party. However, our positive response was tempered by the fact that despite this potentially very useful technology, they didn’t actually have the bottle we selected, and the waiter appeared not to know much about either the wine or the app. If nothing else, it was a reminder that marketing means very little if the product or service don’t meet the promise!

What would really have made it fantastic would have been if we could have ordered the wine direct from the iPad to the bar. Although with bottles costing up to £1500 apparently available, one slip of a drunken finger could prove very costly indeed.

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More enlightenment and opinion from Madhouse, Manchester’s leading integrated marketing communications agency