At conference tables in glass-walled meeting rooms around the world, people who sell things debate: How can we sell more? They pollute the office building air with the buzzwords of our day: social, trending, hashtags, emoji, millennials!
From these meetings come ploy after ploy for companies to stay relevant in a digital landscape they do not understand. That's how we end up here, with an app called ManiMatch by Sally Hansen.
The brand partnered with ModiFace, an app-making company based on transforming women's photos to show them how they might be more beautiful. ModiFace has apps that allow you to “try on” hair colours, makeup, braces, skin tones, plastic surgery procedures and weight loss.
ManiMatch allows you to try on Sally Hansen nail polish, with the hope that you will share the results on social media, then click the “buy now” button (and pay $5 for shipping a $7 product).
The premise is a bit ridiculous to begin with. Unlike eye shadow, you can easily imagine how a polish colour will look on your hand without the assistance of technology. The app claims to recommend colours for your skin tone, but the science of the “unique patent-pending shade-recommendation algorithm” is far beyond me. I was recommended two teals, a lavender, a red and a light tan shade the same colour as my hand. If it wasn't for the red, I'd be sure this was an attempt to rid the warehouse of its worst-selling colours.
Even if there are manicure-lovers out there who think this shtick is worthwhile, they'll end up deleting this app because it simply doesn't work. I had to scan my hand three times for it to catch. Once it did, the app didn't show a photo of my hand with the polish on. Taking it a step further to provide a live “augmented reality,” the colour attempts to hover over your finger tips as you move your hand beneath the camera. In reality, it looks as if little jelly beans are hopping around on your knuckles.
The app works better if you place your hand on a flat, light-coloured surface – something unavailable in the places you'd likely be using this app. Unless you think you'll enjoy placing your palm on a drugstore aisle floor, I wouldn't waste your phone space. – Washngton Post