Who is going to use Dishtag?
Everyone loves to eat, and everyone loves food. And everyone, especially in Hong Kong, loves to share their food experiences – the great dishes, great nights out, and great restaurants. Dishtag takes this love of food to the next level. We designed a platform which gives its users flexibility in how they interact it with yet retain great food as its core. We know some people will use Dishtag more than others, some will use the search feature more, others will be bigger fans of the sharing feature. But the most important thing to us is that Dishtag has been designed to help more people discover and share the food they love. We believe even the people who today only use word of mouth to discover new places to eat and new dishes will love the Dishtag platform. With so many access points, we have no doubts that we can bring a substantial amount of people to the platform to share their food experiences.
People who use social media but not for food
We position Dishtag as an alternative to other social media platforms, which their users may want to keep reserved for memorable holidays or family moments. We believe that these people would share the picture of a great dish if they had a “dedicated” platform to share food photos and remember their most memorable food moments. These people already embrace social and now we are certain they will embrace Dishtag.
Foodies & Food Bloggers
Food blogging has become a highly visible online activity. We believe these bloggers are highly likely to be early adopters of a dedicated food sharing app and would use Dishtag on a regular basis to discover dishes, find local restaurants, share dishes with friends & followers and follow where friends and other bloggers are eating. We would love to work with these food bloggers, who could use Dishtag as a way to promote the external platforms they currently use and their own personal blogs, and collaborate to bring new users to the Dishtag app.
Tourists
We believe Dishtag can be a platform to help visitors find dishes and restaurants in Hong Kong and be a useful place to capture (and extend) their memories of their time in the city. Dishtag would also serve as a fantastic tool to visualise the dishes before ordering them in a restaurant. Giving the person the ability to see what the dish looks like may encourage them to try some dishes they may not encountered before or wher the where the written description doesn’t do the final product justice. Indeed, it was the Cantonese restaurants in the UK where I first remember pictures of food so I could visualise the chicken chop suey I was ordering. Dishtag takes the traditional Cantonese idea of taking photos of dishes, beautifies it, digitizes it and shares it across Hong Kong – and potentially across the world.
Key Opinion Leaders
Many celebrities, influencers, KOLs, use Instagram for business and earn a regular income from advertising products or representing brands to their followers. We believe the Dishtag app will be a way that KOLs can earn revenue from the dishes they eat and the restaurants they visit, as they don’t currently share restaurants on Instagram. We can foresee that KOLs could migrate their followers across to Dishtag and the followers could follow the KOL to follow what they eat and which restaurants they are eating at.
Young Adults – the Snapchat generation
Young people are heavy users of social media and can help a new technology go viral to attract strong growth in the number of users. Dishtag provides a way for these people to document the “cool” restaurants they are eating in and the great places their parents are taking them to eat during family meals. While this group wouldn’t necessarily have the disposable income to eat out in restaurants, the potential of leveraging the “cool factor” can’t be understated. This generation would, we hope, use Dishtag as a means to showcase to friends their memorable food moments.
Couples
Hong Kong couples may have a “date night” once per week or special occasions (birthdays, anniversaries) where they look forward to choosing a restaurant and deciding on a location. The selection of the restaurant is key, but couples generally find new restaurants through word of mouth from a friend or colleague, rather than on a traditional food platform, as they may not trust whats online. People in general conversation also don’t tend to discuss a restaurant at the “dish level”, but we believe searching through a visual menu of a restaurant would add to the overall dining experience. Reviewing the menu before selecting a restaurant, or looking through the menu and get excited about what they will order during the journey to the restaurant, would only enhance the specialness of the event.
Business
Dishtag could be used in the corporate world. Across the world, but in Hong Kong particularly, a lot of business is conducted over a shared dining experience. With Dishtag, business people could find appropriate venues, see the dishes which would help make the right impression and “fit” their client. They may even go a step further by asking what the client wants to eat, and using Dishtag’s visual search to identify the perfect dish, then send their choice through to the client. Alternatively, the host may want to be seen as knowledgeable about the restaurant and the menu when taking a client for dinner.
