We want our users to feel at-home and cared for when they order food from our app Homefood. Our objective is to help them choose authentic foods from different cuisines, using description from the home chefs, and genuine reviews from other users.
We can apply advertising revenue model to our product through different approaches:
Ads of chefs or dishes:
We can potentially allow chefs to advertise their prominent dishes, and show them in the Spotlight section. The Spotlight section is currently anticipated to consist of best-selling dishes and best-rated chefs. However, the only pro of this model will be the possible generation of some extra revenue.
There are different cons to this model, and it contradicts our values. We do not want to advertise certain home chefs solely because they can afford to. Our motive is to give our chefs an opportunity to showcase their culinary art; giving headstarts to some chefs will be unfair. We want our users to choose dishes transparently based on a fair regulated review system and genuine descriptions or pictures provided by chefs. Users shouldn’t be fed choices through endorsements. So, I believe this approach will be unfair not only to chefs, but also misguide the users.
Finally, it ruins the community aspect if we provide endorsements for selective chefs. This could tamper with our image, resulting in less overall revenue and customer satisfaction.
To emphasize this thought, I will quote Ethan: “How do you monetize user-generated content without implicitly endorsing that content?” In our case, how would we maintain the community and transparency when we implicitly endorse selective chefs based on money?
Generic ads from third parties:
Another way to generate revenue through advertisements is to allow third parties to post ads on our app. This approach sounds more balanced than the former. Pros obviously include a steady source of income, given that our app attracts a reasonable user base.
Cons are showing inappropriate ads or unethical products to college students or children. This could be handled by proper choice of ads allowed and sensitivity to user reactions to any or all of the ads on the app. Even then, there is no guarantee of revenue, and click-through or final sale ratios of ads tend to be pretty low. Additionally, advertising budgets often diminish during tough economic times or industry downturns and result in minimal revenue generation.
