ESSAYS PETE MILLER, CREATIVE DIRECTOR AT TANGENT SNOWBALL ultrasound pregnancy scanner),
David Camera (a baby monitor) and the boldly named Master Bates – a male fertility tester.
bleepbleeps.com 3 VESSYL Beverages are the number one
source of calories. “Vessyl”, says Miller, “is a beautiful product packed full of sensors that can identify any liquid poured into it, track your consumption and then feed that information through to your smartphone. An app then helps you set goals and monitor your progress against them, whether you want to lose weight, stay hydrated, regulate caffeine or sleep better. This has an almost Apple-like refi nement to it. There’s real attention to detail. The technology is sensitive enough to measure the water that’s added to a drink as ice cubes melt, or to tell different brands of coffee apart.”
myvessyl.com 4 T. JACKET This app-controlled jacket by T.
Ware is designed to help children and adults with sensory processing diffi culties such as autism, ADHD, Alzheimer’s or post-traumatic stress disorder. At moments of high anxiety or stress, those conditions can be exacerbated. The T. Jacket uses a sensor to monitor anxiety levels. When they reach a certain level, a message is sent to a user’s smartphone and, using air compression, the jacket tightens to ‘hug’ the wearer. We all have a basic, instinctual
response to pressure on the body. The idea, explains Miller, is not to eliminate human contact but to recreate the emotional effect of a hug. The result is a novel and touching – in the most literal sense – integration of the technological, the physical and the emotional. Could it be in fi elds like this that wearable technology’s real utility lies?
mytjacket.com
T.JACKET 4 BLEEPBLEEPS 2
SEN.SE MOTHER 1
among marketers is that they should be able to analyse that information and act on it. But data needs to be approached responsibly and with respect. Understanding privacy and ownership issues will be paramount as technology evolves. Secondly, says Miller, marketers need
to be ready for user-generated innovation (UGI). “The crowd-funding revolution makes
3 VESSYL
it easier for anyone with a good idea to be able to enter a market,” he says. “Just as we’ve learned to use social media and UGC, so we must be ready to look at UGI. There’s a reason the recent groundswell has been driven primarily by the start-up and crowd-funded community. These organisations are lightweight and agile. For brands to compete, they need to keep pushing to ensure technology is a function that extends beyond the marketing department – looking at how it can improve every interaction with the brand, from the product to customer experience to employees and suppliers. Specifi cally for product innovation they need to fi nd new ways of working that emulate the start-up culture – small, agile cross-discipline teams with high autonomy.” So, as technology plays an ever
LESSONS FOR MARKETERS There are, of course, thousands of innovative new products and projects like these landing every month. The lessons for businesses, brands and marketers, says Miller, is twofold. First, as more devices come online,
so more data becomes available – some of it highly personal. The great hope
37 issue 22 october 2014
greater role in our daily lives, there’s an opportunity for brands and marketers to provide users with devices that play a clear, utilitarian role and provide both parties with highly personalised services and data. The key will be walking the line between intimacy and intrusion, providing users with services that capture their imagination and which slot into their lives as seamlessly as the fi rst smartphones did.
tangentsnowball.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
