WAPP Spells Marketing Success At KDFW

Thanks to the WAPP, more than 800,000 people in North Texas are now walking around with peace of mind in the palm of their hand. The WAPP is KDFW’s weather app, and since its launch in March 2012, it has become one of the top free weather apps in the nation for the Fox O&O in Dallas (DMA 5).

“At one point,” says John Kukla, KDFW’s creative services director, “the WAPP was No. 2 on the iTunes chart behind The Weather Channel’s app.”

How did the station get so many people to download it?

“A mixture of heavy promotion, embracement by our meteorologists and distinguishing ourselves with the name. It’s more than an app, it’s the WAPP,” said Kukla.

KDFW: Fox 4 WAPP Launch Promo

Ironically, the weather also helped.

“We had 5 or 6 days of flooding rain right as we launched the WAPP,” Kukla says.

That allowed the station’s meteorologists to highlight the WAPP features and encourage downloads. Three weeks later, a series of tornadoes struck North Texas, prompting this letter:

KDFW: Fox 4 WAPP Testimonial

To keep the campaign fresh, Kukla’s team also created seasonal on-air promos.

KDFW: Fox 4 WAPP Spring

KDFW: Fox 4 WAPP Winter

But on-air promos are just a part of KDFW’s WAPP marketing strategy.

“When there’s bad weather in the forecast,” Kukla says, “we can respond with 15-20 digital billboards around the Dallas-Fott Worth metroplex, Web banners on our website and on social media, [all to] remind viewers that it’s going to a particularly WAPP-y day.”

“We’ve done a good job of seizing the opportunities,” KDFW Chief Meteorologist Dan Henry says.

“When there’s an active weather day, we plug the WAPP.”  

And severe weather drives downloads and usage. According to KDFW, during spring tornadoes in May, there were 73,000 downloads, 7 million sessions (opening of the WAPP) with the majority of users spending between 30 seconds and 3 minutes per session on both the Android and iPhone versions combined.

“Viewers love the live radar, but also the video forecasts,” Henry says, “the WAPP has been huge for us.”

Henry says the WAPP has helped tremendously increase interaction with viewers on Facebook and Twitter, with viewers sending videos, pictures and information.

“A minute or so after bad weather hits, we start getting videos and pictures,” Henry says. “It’s like having our own team of personal weather watchers out there.”

Do they worry that the WAPP will siphon off viewers from their newscasts?

Henry says the app and newscasts go hand-in-hand.

“When the bad weather hits, in between newscasts, they have the WAPP in their hands,” Henry says. “They can see what’s coming but there’s so much more about that bad weather that we can tell them in the newscasts.”

Both Henry and Kukla say their newscasts “do very well” when there’s severe weather. Overall, KDFW Fox 4’s newscasts do well in the ratings.

“We’ve been No. 1 or No. 2 in most every day-part for several years now in all key demos (adults 18-49 and 25-54),” according to a rep at Fox headquarters in New York who says KDFW Fox 4’s newscasts are No. 1 at 4:30-9 a.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m. and No. 2 at 10 p.m.

Can the WAPP be used to promote the station, to drive viewers to watch?

According to Kukla, “Delivering the info viewers need when they need it is all the promotion we need.”

Market Share by Paul Greeley is all about marketing and promotion at TV stations and appears every Monday. Read other Market Share columns here. If you have some ideas or stories you want to share, please let me know. You can reach Paul Greeley at [email protected] or at 817-578-6324.