‘Trail Tracker’: Funniest Good Idea Ever

This university project, complete with hilarious spoof ad, might actually be one of the best app ideas we’ve stumbled upon.

We at Horse Nation love innovative new ideas, and we also love a good horse joke, funny horse video and general equine ridiculousness … so when we came across the spoof ad for the fictional “Trail Tracker” app, we knew we had to learn more.

Here’s the spoof ad, starring the ad’s creator Ellie Woznica as the spokeswoman and HN columnist Haley Ruffner as the rider.

We spoke with Ellie Woznica, the creator of Trail Tracker and a student at Alfred University, to learn more about the concept behind this fictional product.

HN: What was this project originally produced for?

EW: This past semester I took a course in Marketing Principles. Earlier in the class we had to come up with an innovation and discuss how we would market that innovation to consumers. Our final project was to take that same product and create a communication for it, and I chose to do a commercial.

HN: How did you come up with the idea for “Trail Tracker”?

EW: The idea for Trail Tracker was actually inspired by my mother. Even now, she worries about me and my horse getting separated on the trail, especially now that we’re away from home. I wanted to create a product that would give my mom peace of mind not only in regards to my safety but also to the safety of my horse if he is unable to find his way back to the barn.

HN: If you had the opportunity, would you turn Trail Tracker into a real product?

EW: I would love to make Trail Tracker a real product! I don’t have an experience with the technology needed to make it happen, but I think it would be a great safety product for the equestrian community.

HN: Tell us more about the filming process — how many times did Haley have to fall off that horse??

EW: The filming process was a blast! It was definitely hard to keep a straight face. I stumbled a few times over my lines and had a few break outs of uncontrollable laughter, but Haley’s cue was towards the end of my spiel, so (sadly) she only had to fall off of my horse Batman once.

Go riding!