Journal Vol.1
AnalogFolk
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WELCOME... Since AnalogFolk London first opened its doors back in 2008, the digital landscape has distorted almost beyond recognition. But between opening offices in Sydney and New York, we’ve always kept our ear firmly to the ground, listening out for the latest trends, new technologies, and consumer habits shaping the future of digital. This journal sees our very own Folk exploring some of the recent roars and murmurings that will hopefully help you think about digital experiences in a whole new light. Enjoy.
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Designed
Lawrence Cox
Edited
Joe Thomas & Nick McWilliams
ONTENTS 6
FITTER, HAPPIER, MORE PRODUCTIVE 10
THINGS OUR FOLK LIKE 12
GESTURE CONTROL HAS ARRIVED 16
THE MOBILE ANALYTICS REVOLUTION 22
ACTIONS TO AVOID OFFLINE DISAPPOINTMENT 24
SIX HOT APPS 26
BIRTH OF THE MANUFACTURING NATIVES 30
SO, WHAT’S DIGITAL SUPPOSED TO BE FOR AGAIN? 34
EIGHT TRENDS IMPACTING MOBILE 36
SOCIAL SNAPSHOT
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FITTER, HAPPIER MORE PRODUC Neil Bennett
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Senior Strategist
‘Fitter, happier, more productive’ were the lyrics from one of the finest tracks on Radiohead’s brilliant OK Computer. As well as being a dead cert for any 90’s alternative playlist, today these lyrics are an unspoken, yet very ‘achievable’ mantra for just about anyone with a smartphone. Why? Well, in recent years mankind has embraced a journey of self-improvement. If the Noughties were all about experience and discovery, the Teenies are all about wisdom and personal progress. A few years ago Charlie Sheen might have called it ‘Winning’ – we’d rather call it ‘The Age of Competitive-Self’.
It’s been bubbling away since 2006 when regular people began turning to their smartphones to help them scrape ten seconds off their best 10k. With Nike and Apple sparking a tipping point for the growth of the trend, in just a few years it developed far beyond the running community. Today the thirst for self-improvement is supplemented with products and services for just about every aspect of our lives. Our very own founder Matt Dyke recently enthused about learning chords to the latest Arctic Monkeys album using Garage Band on his iPad whilst riding the
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bus home from work. Smartphone innovation has been the principle driving force. Today our devices are loaded with multiple connected sensors, and are plugged into myriad apps, tools, and services that help us become fitter, happier, more productive. Of course personal progress existed before the humble smartphone. But previously the feedback loop was arbitrary, latent, un-connected, and not very rich. Take learning a new language. In the old world it involved courses, teachers, textbooks, audiobooks and a trip to a foreign climate. And once complete, at best you’d get a certificate (supposing you passed). But in the new world all you need is an app like Duolingo. A free mobile app, it allows you to learn a whole host of different languages. As you learn you score points, providing immediate feedback. And the advanced ‘scientificallyproven’ interactive interface makes it impossible to forget what you’ve learnt. Who needs a course or a teacher? By learning on Dualingo you also make a positive contribution to the world, as Duolingo asks you to translate
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parts of the web as you learn. That’s how they provide the app for free. With translation tasks being matched against your level of learning, users are tasked with translating Wikipedia pages to Spanish. To put the benefit of everyone’s collective contribution into perspective, the Duolingo team claim if 1m people use their app to learn, the entire Wikipedia site could be translated from English to Spanish in just 80 hours. That’s far more rewarding than any certificate. But innovative mobile technology is not the only driver behind the CompetitiveSelf trend. Today there is a social pressure to be constantly bettering oneself. And, due to the hyper-connected world we’re living in, this self-improvement is broadcast for all to see. Admit it – we’re all guilty of trying to make our lives sound interesting on Facebook every so often; our online personas are clamouring for something to boast about. This has caused a shift from work/life balance to work/life blurring. More and more people are adopting Google’s prized 70-20-10 working process for their own lives, spending 70% of their waking hours dedicated to work; 20% to projects with friends, family, or neighbours; and 10% to
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RODUCTIV 8
their own personal endeavours – whether that’s writing a book, starting a new business or, like Matt Dyke, learning the guitar. And should you need any further encouragement for self-improvement, you just need to look towards wider popular culture for inspiration. Social channels are awash with social mantras – from ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ to the relentless ‘YOLO’ culture. Brands are also on board. O2 tells you to ‘Be More Dog’, Levi’s – ‘Go Forth’. This shift in lifestyle has fuelled the growth of cramming and enhanced downtime. It sees us using mobile devices to squeeze every available second out of the day – turn that tedious train journey into personal development time and add to your ten or twenty per cent. Study a new language on your iPhone, organise your work calendar, chart the day’s calorie count – the options are virtually endless. So what about the future of the Competitive Self trend? Well it presents a huge opportunity for brands and businesses to innovate by providing tools, apps, and products that better integrate with the fabric of our lives. As this happens, we’re going to see them become more invisible. The most advanced of these innovations are in ‘wearable technology’. Nike were first to the table here again with their FuelBand – a band you wear on your wrist which charts your calories, steps and movement, turning these into Nike Fuel points which can be tracked day-by-day via a mobile app. Since the FuelBand’s launch in early 2012, activitytracking devices have been eagerly developed and enhanced by both Nike and their competitors (the FuelBand SE was released just a few short months ago, as was the Fitbit Force). Then there’s Jawbone UP24, a wristband that allows you to “Know yourself. Live better”. It tracks how you sleep, move and eat – then helps you use that information to feel your best. Like the FuelBand, it is linked to your phone and delivers daily insights on how you can improve your lifestyle. AF gadget gal Kate Sigrist says: “The app allows you to see your activity by day, as a lifeline, and in trends as the month goes by, which makes it very easy to see if I’m slipping - and because everything is shared with friends, it makes me force myself to make up any shortfall.” But it in fact goes beyond that. By using
an open API, Jawbone has ensured their users can connect devices to a host of other competitive apps, creating a digital eco-system which spurs them on to walk that little bit further, or eat that little bit healthier. Google Glass will further revolutionise the wearable tech market. American tennis pro Bethanie Mattek-Sands may have failed to realise her ambition of wearing Google Glasses on court at last summer’s Wimbledon, but she regularly trains with the device, later analysing the footage with her coach. It’s still early days, but we expect heads-up displays to continue to develop, giving real time feedback on your personal performance upon command. Oakley have already cracked this with their Airwave 1.5 ski goggles, which include an in-built display telling you how fast you’re going, how far you’ve skied, how high you’ve jumped and much more besides. Now the challenge for brands is to find an area where they can provide similar benefits to consumers, fuelling the competitiveness within all of us. No doubt we’ll thank them for it.
Artwork
Ana Iugulescu
Designer
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Flying cars
FIVE THINGS OUR FOL DIG
From Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to The Fifth Element, the flying car is a staple of film fantasy. Now it could become a staple of everyday life, with the first flying cars set to go on sale in less than two years.
What I love
Check out this beautifully shot website, which raises awareness about the threats of environmental pollution and asks you what you can’t live without. Take the experience and find out how you can help save the things you love.
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FUI from movies We’ve stumbled upon a site providing Fictional User Interfaces (FUI) from movies. We like this, even if it’s lacking in older films. Feed your inner geek… W
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Paper war stop-motion animation This cleverly directed paper animation features two characters living in a paper world battling it out to win the affections of an alluring paper lady.
The 360o interactive chase If you’ve always wondered what it would be like to take part in the Running of the Bulls, but have been too terrified to take part, give this interactive chase a go. It almost feels like you’re there.
Rachel Wolff
Copywriter
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GESTURE C HAS ARRI “
ONLY A HANDFUL OF BRANDS HAVE PICKED UP ON THE POTENTIAL, PERHAPS DOWN TO THE SOCIAL AWKWARDNESS OF WAVING YOUR HANDS AT A PIECE OF TECHNOLOGY.
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CONTROL IVED, BUT ARE CONSUMERS READY? Ian Brennan
Head of Development
With recent developments in gesture control and motion based technology, there is now a strong expectation that brands will be experimenting within this exciting new area as a way of increasing engagement with the consumer. But despite the advances, do we really know what to use it for yet? Smartphones and tablets have led us into a touchable digital world. Gone are the days of pressing keys and moving a scroll wheel, now we expect instant feedback via touch controls, and air based gestures are the next natural step for this type of interaction. Companies like Leap Motion are looking to disrupt the human-computer interface market by creating a product which
enables us to directly manipulate onscreen items with our hands. The premise is simple: make gestures with your hands and the device translates them into onscreen events and controls. Before you know it we’ll have an office full of people talking into their glasses, swiping their watch screens, and flailing their arms around like a crazed orchestra conductor. It’s the future. HP recently announced a partnership with Leap Motion that will see the device embedded in a range of their laptops. And with Apple recently patenting a touchless control interface, it’s time for brands to start thinking about the next steps in user interactions.
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Next Steps It’s not just Leap Motion making waves in the sector either. Norwegian startup, Elliptic Labs, have developed an ultrasound chip which uses sound waves to interpret hand movements. Then there’s PrimeSense, the company behind gesture control for Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect, which demonstrated a shrunken Kinect sensor working with a Nexus 10 tablet at a Google developers’ conference in May. The gesture control industry is kicking off, and we’ve all got a great opportunity to be at the helm of innovation. Brands like Heineken have already been using the technology to build interactive experiences for their consumers. The implementation of Leap Motion gesture controls, along with a wrap around screen, led to an immersive experience delivering their brand values in a fun way. But only a handful of brands have picked up on the potential, and perhaps this is down to the social awkwardness of waving your hands at a piece of technology. Once those social barriers have been broken down, we’re all in for a treat.
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Development work There’s no doubting that gesture controls have the potential to improve the existing interface experience. To be at the forefront of this innovative field brands should look to initiate research and development work streams now. AnalogFolk developers have already started to play around with Leap Motion, and our agency website (analogfolk.com) is now compatible with the technology. It’s only the start of our journey into creating usable applications with Leap Motion, and we’re looking forward to seeing what the industry can come up with. With this type of user interaction in its infancy there is a huge opportunity for brands to define the future of gesture controls. The marketplace is ready and waiting for that one killer application to take us to the next level of human – interface interaction. One thing is for certain, gestures are here to stay and you’d be foolish to ignore them.
THREE THINGS TO THINK ABOUT BEFORE IMPLEMENTING GESTURE CONTROL: Is your audience ready for gesture control? It’s worth thinking about how your audience will react if you do implement some form of gesture control within your product. Will it be used as a marketing tool, or will it form the base of your core user experience? How do you define gestures? With the industry still in its infancy, there are no set-in-stone, pre-defined ways of doing things. We all expect a mouse wheel to scroll a page up and down, but how does that translate to gestures? What happens without them? Not everyone is going to have access to a device that supports gesture controls. Do you have a fallback plan?
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TALKIN’ ‘BOUT A REVOLUTION IN MOBILE ANALYTICS Matthew Robinson
Analytics Director
With the number of smartphone activations now exceeding the number of babies born, and brands increasingly embracing a ‘mobile first’ strategy, the need for effective measurement of mobile behaviours has never been greater. Yet, according to a recent Econsultancy study, fewer than 30% of businesses have a proper measurement plan with clear KPIs. Which is very sub-optimal. We can and should be doing better. Central to the task of improving this situation is embracing long-established analytics fundamentals, and more mobile-specific metrics and business intelligence. However, it’s really only through cross-device measurement that we’ll be able to figure out the role mobile plays in prompting meaningful engagement and delivering consumer value. Which makes it all the more welcome then that the very complex business of platform attribution has, just recently, been given a significant helping hand - thanks to Google and a new feature on its Universal Analytics measurement tool. It might not have been what Tracy Chapman was singing about all those years ago, but it’s sure to herald a revolution in the way we conduct mobile analytics. But first of all, back to basics. Effective mobile analytics – or indeed analytics in support of any and all digital activity – needs to be rooted in an agreed strategy, be guided by business goals and be clear on what tasks the mobile experience is intended to support. To this end, determining whether KPIs need to be based on acquisition, interaction, retention and/or revenue is a function of straightforward business analysis. This being the case, failure to know what mobile KPIs to set is as much to do with not properly considering aims and objectives, as it is any uncertainty around how best to track and measure mobile. However, while paying attention to the fundamentals is an essential first step, the next one is to acknowledge just how different are the needs of consumers when using mobile devices. With more than 80% of us using a smartphone to compare prices while out shopping, almost 50% using one to see how to get from A to B, and the FT forecasting that 28% of all search will be done on a mobile by 2015, it’s self-evident that handheld devices are perfect for surfacing timely, relevant and contextual content. And it’s crucial that this is taken into account when putting together a measurement framework and considering the scope for optimisation. For example, in view of the rising number of searches being carried out on mobile, one very good idea would be to add some tracking to the phone number in your PPC ads. This would pull in to Google AdWords a useful set of metrics such as the number of calls placed, the number received, and the average call duration – which, if it’s of significant length, would be a good proxy for conversion. All of which is invaluable to the task of optimising mobile search ads and experimenting to find the best performing call to action. Another area of focus that’s quite specific to mobile analytics is the one around screen resolution. Reporting on this will act to validate form factor, with any
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TALKIN’ ‘BOUT A REVOLUTION IN MOBILE ANALYTICS
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low performance numbers against screen size signifying, quite possibly, a fiddly user experience on that device type. However, perhaps the key to addressing mobile’s specific measurement needs rests on aligning a mobile site’s function and utility to the actual experience consumers are having on their tablets and phones. Determining the pages and the sections that are seeing the most mobile traffic, and then customising the content accordingly. This could see you promoting new or featured content much more. Or pushing current deals and sign-up offers to a greater extent. It could, of course, see you create an app. Or it might simply impel you to reduce copy, cut the number of pages, lessen the form fields, go with bigger buttons, or any number of other pro-active responses. To that end, the whole ‘mobile first’ mind-set really isn’t about just scaling down the desktop version of a website so that it fits onto a smaller screen. It’s about ensuring the mobile destination caters for the actual intentions and behaviours of its visitor traffic, and establishes/refines this in response to what the analytics data is saying – not only by way of headline conversions, but also regards upper funnel conversions, that will very likely generate revenue and/or economic value in the future. Of course, besides the increasing ubiquity of smartphones, there’s another thing that should be concentrating minds and motivating businesses to improve their mobile analytics, and that’s the lag in conversion rates we see on handheld devices – phones especially. According to IBM data, a quarter of visits to E-commerce sites happen on mobile devices, but only 15% of purchases. However, while it’s advisable to take any and all steps necessary to improve the mobile experience and up KPI conversion rates, one shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture – which is that mobile ought to compliment other platforms, not compete with them. It’s a multi-screen world that we live in now, and people are hopping from to one to another more and more. As such, it’s important not to set mobile KPIs in isolation, but instead to take a properly cross-platform view, and attempt some attribution analysis. By attribution, we of course mean dishing out some credit to each and every piece of device content that aids conversion. For instance, the product videos watched on a tablet, or the discount offers looked at on a smartphone, prior to the ‘actual’ conversion on a desktop computer. Now, essential though it is to see where the customer’s cross-platform usage overlaps, properly assessing the part that mobile plays has thus far, to a large extent, been near on impossible. With no cross-device primary key acting to stitch together the many different online journeys, businesses (save those that invite their users to login) have only been able to measure the total number of customers using each individual platform. That is until now. For at their annual I/O developer conference in early May 2013, Google announced a significant new feature to their Universal Analytics platform - Cross Device Measurement. A ground-breaking piece of utility that will permit the tracking of users across sessions and devices, and which will at a stroke enable a far better understanding of how visitors move from one device to another when accessing content. No more routinely identifying three visits from three devices as three unique visitors. If these visitors share the same UID (User ID), Universal Analytics will now recognise them as the same consumer - as one unique visitor. Moreover, not only will this support a measure of ‘assisted conversions, seeing to it that revenue or economic value gets more fairly apportioned across our devices, it will also enable the identification of device-specific conversion paths. So that’s insight into both the extent of mobile’s influence over the consumer when getting them to convert, and the particular devices and the particular steps to pay attention to in an effort to optimise the overall customer journey.
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Of course, it could be that we’ll never see smartphones directly convert to the same extent as PCs, or even tablets. But with cross-device measurement, we will at least get to properly appreciate the supporting role they play. For now, this new Universal Analytics feature remains in beta, and there’s no published timeline for when we can expect it to be available to all. But still, it’s beyond all doubt that it will revolutionise not just mobile analytics, but web analytics in general. And that means a greater ability to affect change, make improvements, and demonstrate effectiveness. Something that the conscientious Tracy Chapman would approve of I’m sure.
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FIVE ACT2 ONLINE B CAN TAK AVOID O DISAPPO 1. AnalogFolk
FIVE ACTIONS ONLINE BRANDS CAN TAKE TO AVOID OFFLINE DISAPPOINTMENT Alice Forward
User Experience Director
A while ago, a painful search for a 40th birthday gift ended on a buzz-worthy website. Inspired by the beautiful user experience, I bought a gift, failing to notice a six- to eight-week delivery time. A confirmation email didn’t highlight this either. The birthday approached and no gift arrived, so I returned to the website to find in tiny writing the timeframe. Devastated. The birthday passed and I waited. At week seven, with no gift and no order updates, I went to Facebook and found I wasn’t alone. Much of the commentary coming from other customers dissatisfied with the lacklustre fulfilment. By week eight, the gift arrived, but I never shopped on that site again. So it was interesting to read recently that the website involved, Fab.com,
seems to have hit hard times. Articles suggest a change in business strategy and mismanagement of the company by the CEO are the cause. I can’t help wondering, though, if the inability to reflect the quality of the online shopping experience in the offline fulfilment of their products was also a contributing factor to the slowing of Fab’s success. At the end of the day, a good user experience online is pointless if you can’t deliver on the promise in the offline world. A good online user experience is effective when it is part of a connected and consistently good customer experience across the board, and only then will it help to create the success demonstrated by online retailers such as Made.com and ASOS.
SO WHAT ARE THE KEY PRINCIPLES OF CREATING SUCH AN ONLINE EXPERIENCE? Make sure the experience meets users’ online expectations
When I made my purchase on Fab.com I assumed delivery would be quick, because that is what, as a prolific online shopper, I am used to. Creating an online retail experience that fails to deliver against user expectations particularly around delivery and payment options will ultimately lead to them leaving your site and going elsewhere.
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3 2 . . TIONS BRANDS KE TO 5 . OFFLINE OINTUse the online experience to clearly set expectations
Make sure the experience across channels is connected
Online shoppers are taskfocused. They will pay close attention to the information you provide on your site and this creates an ideal opportunity to send really targeted messages. Use this to set clear expectations about your offering and your customer experience. Don’t hide key information – even if it is something you’d rather not draw too much attention to, this just leads to frustration and lost repeat visits.
There is nothing more frustrating than making an online purchase and subsequently being informed two days later that the purchased item is not available because the online stock information is not in sync with real world stock. It is becoming increasingly important to have consistent experiences across channels and unless you can enable this you need to consider how to best manage the situation, perhaps by using clear communications within your online experience. Don’t just cross your fingers and hope for the best.
Use online to keep communication channels open and responsive
Don’t over-promise online and under-deliver offline or vice versa
Use your digital experience to keep your customers regularly informed of what is happening offline. My experience of Fab might have resulted in a different outcome if there had been clear communication about the extended delivery time. Don’t assume your customers have read the small print or remember their purchase details and don’t be afraid to give them regular updates on what is happening with their order.
Having a great experience with a brand online and a terrible experience with the same brand offline can be more detrimental than a consistently average experience, and ultimately lead to lost customers. Don’t make a promise for “Smiles Guaranteed” online if your overall customer experience can’t deliver it.
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Zombies, Run! An app that transform your daily run into a zombie adventure where you must outrun zombies, pick up items and supplies, and immerse yourself in an exciting story‌ and get fit at the same time!
Dots A free game based around connecting coloured dots vertically and horizontally on a 6x6 grid. But be warned! The minimal UI, subtle sound design, and sociallyconnected scoreboards make it highly addictive.
SIX HO APPS WE LIK Des Holmes
Creative Technical Director
Seene The free app uses the smartphone’s camera, sensors, and WebGL technology to put out 3D images that allow users to shift perspective. We can all look forward to 360o selfies filling up our Instagram feeds any day now.
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Forecast.io A free, fully-featured weather service, offering minute-byminute forecasts and some beautiful animations which offer a silver lining to the inevitable: “It’s going to rain today”.
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Spaceteam A real-time, team-based party game where players must shout instructions to fellow team members in order to level up. And what’s more fun than shouting at friends while hurtling through space?
KE Paper Paper does what it says on the tin: it’s a digital pad of paper. More than that though, it’s flexible and intuitive, totally free of distracting icons and even menus. Now there are no excuses to get sketching…
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IT’S CONCEIVABLE WITHIN A FEW YEARS ANYONE COULD MODEL, PRINT AND FINISH ANY OBJECT THEY WANT.
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BIRTH OF THE MANUFACTURING NATIVES Ciaran McGuinness
Senior Producer
Would you be interested in getting a 3D model of your unborn baby to take home from the hospital after the first scan? If your first response was “ugh”, you’re not alone, but regardless the option is now there and it likely won’t be very long before this is the norm. Just as commonplace as 3D printing (otherwise known as rapid prototyping) will be. Out-there examples include implants, human kidneys, medicine, jumbo jets, cars, and the even more far-fetched, food. Yes, this means we’re now in the realm of Star Trek. NASA has recently provided funding to the tune of $125,000 to allow Systems & Materials Research Corporation to look into 3D cooked pizza. These seemingly crazy ideas are real. So it’s not totally inconceivable that in the not too distant future a 3D printer, by then called ‘replicators’, will be in every home. Stepping back a few years. The current 3D manufacturing process you may already be familiar with is based on a printing process called fused deposition modeling (FDM). These printers are fairly prevalent, and you may have seen the plastic models they output, and you’re probably not yet that inspired. What’s interesting about FDM 3D printers is, when patents related to this printing process expired, the prices of these 3D printers fell. This is what helped bring the current breed of 3D consumer printers into hobbyist homes today. Similarly, in February a number of patents related to a different 3D printing process called laser sintering will expire. Laser sintering allows a far higher fidelity prototype to be created than the current consumer grade FDM 3D printers. Those in the know say this means China, the world’s current manufacturing powerhouse, will start shipping affordable, next-generation, manufacturing-grade 3D desktop printers to anyone who wants and can afford one. Thus, it’s conceivable that within a few years anyone could
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model, print and finish (thus fully product-cycle manufacture) any object they want, from the comfort of their own home. What’s next? It’s not a stretch to say that the future will be defined by 3D replication and copyright infringement on a scale never seen before. A new era – one characterised by disrupted industrial engineering and localised manufacturing – is approaching where in a matter of minutes any 3D object can be reproduced from home. Radical changes perhaps, but also not too dissimilar to the impact the Internet has had on our generation today. We know that by 2023 everyone under the age of 27 in businesses will be a digital native. The question is now, what year will the manufacturing natives be born? Perhaps it will be that first generation of children, whose parents have a 3D fetus on their mantelpiece.
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PERHAPS IT WILL BE THAT FIRST GENERATION OF CHILDREN, WHOSE PARENTS HAVE A 3D FETUS ON THEIR MANTELPIECE.
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Carlos de Spinola & Andrew Shiels
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WHAT’S DIGITAL SUPPOSED TO BE FOR AGAIN? Simon Richings
Executive Creative Director
By the time the 2012 award season drew to a close, the new direction for digital creativity was already mapped out. Service design as marketing was the new mantra – the creation of devices and online services so useful, original and interesting that they’d be endlessly talked about and shared and celebrated. Nike FuelBand was the poster child for a new age of agencies making real products with their clients. FuelBand was a wristband that tracked your physical activity, encouraging you to set goals, do more, get fitter and share your progress. A Nike product to be worn every day, connected to the brand but focused on the user. Making these kinds of things would be how we’d spend our days – and nights – from now on. Only it wasn’t. And not because FuelBand was a false herald, or that service design as marketing isn’t a valid and powerful way to meet a client’s needs. Just because, well, in 2013 there was a load of other exciting stuff to make too. Digital is difficult to pin down. One of the reasons is that the word ‘digital’ has become muddied. Are we talking about new technology? Or any technology generally? Or the web? Or social media? Or anything with a screen? What about film on YouTube? The other reason is that digital is hard to do well. Instead of a densely populated landscape of technological marketing success stories, we’ve got something that looks like a Tube map – lots of standout points of interest and lots of white space in-between. These nodes of brilliance become the triumphs continually discussed by industry types and eventually quoted by clients:
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“We want something like FuelBand/Old Spice Responses/Volkswagen Fun Theory/ Burger King Subservient Chicken…” This year, everyone wants their version of Oreo’s Daily Twist. The 2013 Cannes Lions Cyber Grand Prix winner was a social media initiative – 100 simple, pictorial Facebook posts, each a visual pun based on an Oreo cookie and a trending news story. Huge success, a ton of new fans and a remarkable amount of mainstream media coverage later, clients want their own Daily Twist. And they can get it… providing they have a 100-year-old fondly-regarded brand, some great creative talent and a simple but visually distinct product (an Oreo cookie is pretty much its own logo). The formula isn’t as portable as it first seems. The other Cyber Grand Prix winner at Cannes couldn’t have been more different. The Beauty Inside for Toshiba and Intel is an episodic film, a love story, in which the main protagonist wakes up in a different body every day. It’s a tale beautifully told and, because the central character’s appearance keeps changing, the audience can take part; recording video diary segments as if they were him. It’s a lovely idea that communicates the intended message memorably and features a really meaningful use of interactivity. That element – allowing the audience to star in your communications – is the bit other brands may want to replicate, and they will, to varying degrees of success (mainly, lesser). All of these winners, these successes, have something in common – they’re all completely unlike each other. None of them have set new formats for the
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industry to reliably follow. There’s occasional chatter about which platforms are dying and which are the future, whether that’s microsites, mobile apps, Facebook apps, second screen utilisations, games, interactive films, augmented reality applications etc. But these are just categorisations that, divorced from an idea or intent, are relatively unhelpful. So how do you create great digital work? First of all, don’t say “We should do something like FuelBand.” Actually, the aforementioned winners have another thing in common, and this is the important one: the relevance of their idea and execution to the brand, product or message. It’s fundamental. To make waves you’re almost certainly going to have to invent something new. The key is to look for a technological or cultural opportunity that’s relevant to the brand or product. You’re probably not going to find it on the brief. It’s going to be something you have to invent, with clear value for the audience or end-user, as well as the client. What else? Don’t start with what was right for someone else. Also, don’t start with the intention of doing something achingly futuristic and contemporary. Start with a fantastic/simple/improbable idea and have the imagination to deliver it in an achingly futuristic and contemporary way or the bravery to do the opposite, getting all analogue on it. There’s clearly a place for great, simple storytelling in this realm, but a word to be especially suspicious of is ‘content’. It’s generally used to refer to something that doesn’t yet have an idea to drive it – a powerful, relevant, sit-up-and-take-notice, riseabove-the-noise idea.
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But it’s relevance and value that matter most. Inventing something new is hard, but re-purposing another brand’s invention for your own client is potentially disastrous. This is what is so difficult and so exciting about digital. The next big thing looks nothing like those other big things. But it’ll be extraordinary and original and change the game for everyone again. Here’s to the next node on the digital Tube map. Race you there.
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8 TRENDS IMPACTING THE MOBILE FUTURE Carlos de Spinola
Senior Strategist
It’s near enough impossible to pin down a unanimous definition of ‘mobile’ as a term, but we here at AnalogFolk have defined it as: a portable technology which creates an interface to the digital world, enabling contextually relevant utility. A bit of a mouthful, we know. But it essentially can mean anything from a smartphone to an internet-enabled watch. Once we’d got that sorted, we spent some time analysing the technological, behavioural, and attitudinal trends that will be driving ‘mobile’ development over the next few years and compiled our top eight…
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1. Supertasking In the hustle and bustle of a largely urbanised world, we’ve become adept at quickly cycling through multiple personal- and work-related tasks simultaneously. This has become natural in our modern lives, and these tasking lines will become further blurred with the increased ability to take our digital connectivity anywhere with us through mobile devices.
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2. Ambient location
4. Now-casting
Ambient location refers to apps and services that combine social networking and locationtracking technology in order to make relevant connections between people and locations. A good example is Highlight: a start-up that alerts people when their friends are nearby.
A seemingly contradictory term that refers to ‘now’ and ‘forecasting’. As data moves faster than action, now-casting uses evolving real-time data to make short-term forecasts in an attempt to predict the present. In social media, for example, it estimates hidden quantities such as the ‘mood’ of a population or presence of a flu epidemic.
3. On demanders As consumers we’re moving ever closer towards total convenience: be it ordering our groceries online for delivery or watching TV programmes as and when we choose. This is not confined to the home though; mobile is helping us take this attitude to the streets with the likes of real-time instant feedback or services that help us get what we want when we want it (flagging down a taxi is so 1990’s – just HAILO it).
5. Remote controlling Mobile phones (and devices) are becoming the new remote control for life. With the world becoming increasingly internet-connected we have the ability to manage and control elements remotely as needed. Worried about returning to a freezing home in the middle of winter? Now you can switch on the heating just before you get home at night. 6. Unbundling of devices In the next decade, we’ll see the progressive unbundling of technology into four categories: data, devices, software, and sensors (DDSS). The result will be a world in which users and suppliers can endlessly reconfigure the ways in which they use technology to interface with the world. In basic terms: digital will be moulded to fit into the human environment, rather than forcing humans to ‘be digital’. 7. Always synched With the power of ‘the cloud’ and the penetration of mobile broadband, the data world will be more synchronised than ever before irrespective of geographic location. We’re seeing music playlists automatically synchronising to mobile phones, and documents being available wherever you are, whatever device you’re on. The connection between the physical internet and the mobile one is growing stronger. 8. People tagged world Mobile technology has allowed us to interact with our environment like never before. Real-world tagging comes in many different forms and applications: location-based services can tag us digitally, augmented reality technology can digitally enhance the world around us, and QR codes allow us to interact digitally (and immediately) with real-world objects.
35
AnalogFolk
youtube twitter google
SOCIAL SNAPSHOT
19%
20%
21%
19%
16%
36
9%
7%
6%
5%
linkedin instagram pinterest tumblr
myspace
google “
facebook 39%
WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING SERVICES HAVE YOU USED OR CONTRIBUTED TO IN THE PAST MONTH?
myspace
2%
“
4%
2%
Survey size: 41,935 Research wave: Q4 2013 Figure: % of global internet users
37
AnalogFolk.com #TheAFJournal
Feb
2014