Balloonrace.com
balloon.com has been supplying real balloon races to Schools and Charities for 20 years. On most occasions we simply supply the helium and balloons as a DIY package. For larger events such as football matches we manage the event, inflate and release the balloons. See our balloon releases page for more details.
The main part of our business is balloon printing and helium gas hire which we do via our websites balloon.co.uk & balloon.com.
In recent years balloon releases have received bad press from environmentalists even though the balloons are 100% biodegradable. We began to see a reduction in the amounts of balloon races we were selling so we looked at new ideas, that's when we decided to build balloonrace.com - the virtual balloon race.
I originally came across the idea for a virtual balloon race when Orange (mobile phone network) did their own race to launch their new mobile phone networks. In the Orange balloon race all the balloons were free. The race was built by a company called Poke London.
I thought it would be a great product if Schools and Charities could build their own race page on the internet, attach a Paypal account and sell the balloons to anybody who visits the page. The balloons can be boosted by donations or playing game of the day - by having a daily game it will keep balloonists returning to the site everyday until the race ends.
It's also a great way for charities to cash in on the internet revolution.
After fixing a few issues with the race we sourced Solihull School for the next test. We set their race on free vend (all the virtual balloons were free and the pupils could gain a boost from 1 friend per day). The race was a great success, there were over 250 balloons flying across the internet, the pupils and their parents got very competitive and were flying their balloons morning noon and night - on one day the site hit 10,000 hits which included all the boosting http://www.balloonrace.com/solsch (I've reactivated the original school race - look at the leader board).
We then set about selling the product. As we had been selling balloon race packages in sizes dictated by the cylinders (250 package, 500 package, 1000 package) we decided to sell virtual races in a similar way. As each balloon can potentially raise more than a real balloon we thought we could charge the same as our package deals - 45p for each balloon. Alternatively we could just build traffic to the site by offering races for free and try to cash in later with advertising revenue from the websites the balloons fly over (the track).
We encountered other problems - with every virtual balloon that was sold Paypal would take a 27p transaction charge, we needed to bolt on a gift aid facility but felt we couldn't justify the expense.
The product is fantastic and we've had positive feedback from charities and schools who have used the race.
We have now simplified the concept. The balloons move on their own with no games, website or boosting - and the package includes an iphone app to track your balloons process.
|
