LINES hits #1 on App Store as Messina Mondays sends queue-tracking app viral via noisy

LINES, the Sydney-founded going-out app, hit #1 in the Apple App Store’s entertainment category and #7 across all categories nationally on Monday, off the back of its partnership with Gelato Messina. The app also crossed 150,000 active users during the campaign, a new milestone for the platform.

The partnership went live last week. It tracks live queue conditions at all Messina stores during the chain’s now-iconic Messina Mondays promotion, with gelato prices reverting to 2002 levels every Monday, which has triggered two-hour-plus waits at flagship stores from Bondi to Fitzroy.

The campaign isn’t over. Messina Mondays runs for one more week, so there’s still a window to use the app to find the shortest queue for cut-price gelato before the promotion wraps.

Says Callum Weatherall, co-founder of LINES: “We built LINES because queues are the worst part of going out, and Messina Mondays gave us the loudest possible proof of concept. Hitting #1 in entertainment and #7 nationally in a week is a bigger spike than we’d expected, but the numbers underneath are the bit we’re really proud of. 108,000 app sessions of people checking in for live Messina updates. 18,235 views on the 131 live videos uploaded by the public showing how long each line was. And 4,477 group chat joins, with over 5,000 people sitting in chats trading flavour intel, stock updates and live line lengths. That’s not a campaign, that’s a community forming around a queue.”

For Messina, the partnership has changed how the brand talks to customers during some of its craziest weeks on record.

Says Sian Bishop, Head of Brand Marketing for Gelato Messina: “We’ve seen a huge volume of gelato pass through our stores these last few weeks, and with one week left to go the madness isn’t over yet. The partnership with LINES has given us a new way to connect with our customers. Being able to update them in real time what tub sizes are left, how long the line is, and having our customers engage with each other through the LINES live chat has opened up new ways for them to connect.”

The activation was developed alongside noisy, the culture-first media network and ideas lab LINES is part of.

Says Harry Wilson, Managing Director of noisy: “noisy’s job is connecting brands to culture through the platforms culture actually lives on. The LINES platform proves, once again, how culturally relevant they are. When a queue-tracking app hits #1 on the App Store because of a gelato campaign, you don’t need a deck to explain why the partnership worked. What started as three mates as Bondi Lines running round filming pub lines has become so much more. We’re super proud with how far the brand has become.”

The download surge has come almost entirely from organic and earned channels. Social content showing real-time Messina queue updates was reshared widely across TikTok and Instagram in the first 72 hours, with several stores hitting wait times that, according to the app, peaked at 2 hours 14 minutes on Monday 12 May.

LINES is free on iOS and Android. Messina Mondays runs until Monday 25 May.

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