SANTA ANA, Calif. — Yokohama Tire Corp.'s mobile tire specs app — a recently developed "customer-centric" tool for dealership personnel — has earned a 2019 iF Design award, given to organizations that demonstrate a commitment to design and service.
Yokohama, which won in the service design category, describes the app as a "mobile experience that enables and empowers consumer, commercial and OTR dealers to demo and showcase Yokohama products to customers based on their individual needs."
The iF Design awards are presented by the non-profit iF Design Foundation, whose declared aim is to "promote design and its social significance, free from commercial pressures and restrictions." The Hanover, Germany-based foundation replaces iF Industrie Forum Design e.V. (iF e.V.), which operated from 1953 until 2018.
Yokohama said it earned the award for "developing service innovations suitable for real-life application by designing entire service processes in a customer-centric way."
Among the criteria considered for the award:
- Degree of innovation and elaboration;
- Functionality, value and usability;
- Aesthetic and emotional appeal;
- Social responsibility and production efficiency; and
- Positioning in terms of brand fit and target fit group.
Andrew Briggs, Yokohama's vice president of marketing and product management, said the app delivers "a digital experience platform that allows real-time information on all of Yokohama's products.
"Dealers can search by product or tire size and create customized product literature that can be shared with their customers based on their criteria. This enables a high level of engagement from the customers and dealer alike."
Brillio, a Santa Clara-Calif.-based global digital consulting and technology services company, designed the app.
Mr. Briggs said Brillio's goal was to create a "compelling digital experience" for Yokohama's distributors and dealers, something they achieved "far beyond our expectations. The feedback on the app has been overwhelmingly positive."
