In case you haven't found it yet, we have built our very own App from scratch (you can download it here: Download the app). But how did it get to be launched?
When I came up with the idea of the Cruise Retail Academy last year, I always knew that the way it would best work would be through an app that anyone could download. The vision and the idea was a simple one... one login, one password to access all of the huge wealth of information, learning and training that you need as a shoppie. With so many challenges in accessing the resources you need, and difficulties for the industry to connect it to you, the simplest way was to try and build a 'one size fits all' app where you could find it all together. Information from suppliers, information from the industry, and your personal growth journey - all connected together in one format. So, that was the idea.
Turning that idea into a reality was the more challenging part!
So, first up was to decide what to call it. After a lot of various ideas, I decided to keep it simple and call it the Cruise Retail Academy. A name you can understand no matter what language you start from. So, getting the website setup, the business opened and getting the name registered was the first step.
The second step was deciding on the logo and the look / feel. I always was inspired by using a lightbulb to build a logo, as it simply represents illumination. Then, by making it faceted it focusing on our efforts to work in trinity in the cruise retail sector (individual / operator / brand). So, we started to build the faceted lightbulb as the logo idea.
With the help of a great designer who I have worked with for many years, we started to build the identity, the colours and the style to make it all work together.
What we got, is a really cool brand identity that hopefully is easy to identify and clearly representing us a business. We built a set of 'Favicons' to help bring the brand to life in different ways, so that we could build up icons, graphics etc.
We then created a design code, assigning fonts, colours, rules and styles to make sure we created a clear identity. This has taken a little longer to get there, because of the many different options - but now we have got it sorted, and you can see by going through the app / website that it is clear to see what our style is!
We then set about animating the font, with the support of a great team of animators, who made many different versions of our identity, so we can squeeze it into the app / videos to bring the brand to life!
Especially our GREEN.... this colour is really our signature, and the common element that you will always find in our identity. This green is an important relfection of our value - it represents success and opportunity. It is the colour of 'go' and it was really important that it was our brand colour.
So, with a brand identity sorted, next up was to build the app. Here, I started looking at the different tools that were available, and the different computing code needed to start from. The first thing to be sure of, is that the app connected to the website and connected to each member individually. Without boring you too much on the technical side, we started to build all of the different elements one by one. The Forum, News, Jobs, Calendar etc. It was also important that the core features of the app don't consume a huge amount of bandwidth, so the learning especially had to be data-friendly. With each element built and working, next up was to test it.
This app has to be our brand, so it was really important to make sure it feels fully part of the Cruise Retail Academy ethos. So making sure we didn't simply get an 'off the shelf' solution was really important, but also pretty challenging.
To get your app launched on Apple store and Google Play you have to a large amount of testing to ensure that it is ready for activating. For Apple, this was pretty simple and we were done in just a few weeks. For Google, this was a big challenge and it took us nearly 5 months of work to get the app designed and finished and for them to approve it to put it on their store. We have had to change many of the original ideas to pass their assessment. Many times, we actually didn't think it was going to get there, but in the end... the test was passed! And here we are.... fully launched on Apple Store and Google Play :-)
So now, we have an app that reflects our brand and our values. It is ready to grow and develop with us as we are. As always, we would love to get your ideas, your feedback and your suggestions in how we can develop it to better suit your needs. And now, we are ready to build it over the next weeks and months with the help and support of the cruise retail community. There will be a lot of content to find, a lot of content to develop and I hope, a lot of contribution to come!
And there you have it.... we have the first ever cruise retail industry App, and now we want to let it grow, develop and evolve. Let's do it together!
Let us know what you think in the comments below.
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