General movie apps are comprehensive at best and misleading at worst. How do you know whose take to trust? Wouldn’t it be easier to get recommendations from friends and family, people whose opinion you understand and whose experiences you can have faith in?
Enter Vouch Vault, an app where people “vouch” for items and experiences that come as lived events. Users can follow friends’ suggestions and directions as to the best things to do through shared counsel. The free app is designed to change the way people read and review recommendations. Toggle between media, services, food, and products in your feed, and user Vaults.
Launched by Super Troopers star and director, Jay Chandrasekhar, joining with SPARK6 co-founders, Eric Colbert and Elijah Szasz, Vouch Vault is like other social networks where a list of photos and descriptions arises from the feeds that you follow. Unlike its peer apps, however, this roll is no mere algorithm based on your scrolling — it’s populated by those things that the people you confide in enjoy. Chandrasekhar, in fact, sparked the idea for the app came through his disdain for easily manipulated aggregate reviews.
“When my film, Super Troopers, showed at Sundance, it played to big laughing crowds,” Chandrasekhar said in a press release. “But when it was released, the reviewers didn’t agree. Despite the negative Rotten Tomatoes reviewer score, Super Troopers caught fire and became a hit.”
This raised the question of where those critiques came from.
“I remember wondering, who even are these reviewers? They’re just strangers with outsized opinions. When’s the last time you walked up to a stranger and said, ‘Hey, what movie should I see?’,” Chandrasekhar asked.
This naturally led to enabling those people whose answers to inquiries can be taken at face value.
“When I’m looking for a film to watch, I ask my friends, whose opinions I trust,” Chandrasekhar said. “Vouch Vault is the app where all of your friends’ recommendations are not only stored but shared. And it’s not just movies; it’s everything, including books, TV, podcasts, music, meals, cars, electricians — frankly, Vouch Vault is for anything you love and want to recommend.”
This aligns with a Nielsen study that found customers are getting smarter about buying into anonymous tips, but not that much smarter. Ninety-two percent of survey respondents said they trust word-of-mouth or recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising – an 18 percent increase since 2007. Online consumer reviews, however, are the second most trusted source of brand information and messaging, with 70 percent of survey members indicating they trust these recs, a 15 percent increase in four years.
Vouch Vault also solves the issue of organizing this information, saving suggestions in one place. Filtered searches keep honest options at peoples’ fingertips. The app also aims to support small businesses, restaurants, and local vendors. If it’s in your Vault, your close friends and followers are more likely to visit it.
The Vouch Vault mobile app is free to download in the Apple App Store and Google Play. After creating an account, users can immediately start following others, browsing items, and adding favorited items into their own Vouch Vault.
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