Contagious rounds up the landmark events, movements and socio-economic shifts that have shaped the last year. Buy a beautiful physical copy now: bit.ly/printMoCo
2. 04 Introduction /
By Paul Kemp-Robertson, Contagious, and Dave Senay, Fleishman-Hillard
06 Movements /
Evolution and empowerment
10 Purpose /
Playing a role in society
13 Marketing as Service Design /
Utility not noise
16 Divine Data /
Insight by numbers
19 Technology /
Big battles, small victors
23 Design /
Personalised play
27 Social Business /
Adopting an open door policy
30 Image Sharing /
The year of the photo
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
3. Amplified Live / 33
Enhance, capture and share
Screen Grabs / 36
Creating, sharing, watching
Augmented Media / 39
Layering content and utility
Retail / 43
Shopping gets connected
Personalisation / 47
Here’s to you
The New Loyalty / 50
Services not schemes
Payments / 53
Changing the way we pay
Small But Perfectly Formed / 56
Little brands, big thinkers
Most Contagious / Award Winners 60
3
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
4. Contagious / Introduction
By Paul Kemp-Robertson
Welcome to the Most Contagious 2012 report, Brands behaving as super-citizens is something
our annual review of the trends, technologies and that our consultancy team at Contagious Insider
creative innovations that have influenced brands explored in a Cannes seminar in June, where we
this year. By putting the past 12 months into presented the concept of brand as interface, not
context we hope to equip you, in some small way, interrupter. We used the title ‘Better With The
for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Brand’ to suggest that the best brands are a
conduit through which the lives of real people can
The golden thread stitching the year’s report
be made better. The original definition of the word
together is citizenship. Think of the spirit of the
interface is to meet, to synchronise, to coordinate,
London Olympics encapsulated by Tim Berners-
to harmonise. We think that a brand should behave
Lee at the height of the opening ceremony,
as an indispensable tool or a common boundary
tweeting ‘This is for Everyone’ to the watching
that connects people to information, augmented
world. Think also of the disintermediating potential
content, services and experiences that they
of Kickstarter and the grassroots fan fiction
wouldn’t get via any other means.
communities that spawned Fifty Shades of Grey.
How about the data-driven intimacy of Obama’s That’s why this report is filled with examples of
election campaign? The transparency and ubiquity brands being driven by a higher sense of purpose.
of social media is fuelling the rise of people Brands have long behaved like corporate Medicis
power. What’s more, Nielsen’s Global, Socially – bestowers of creative munificence in the form of
Conscious Consumer report found that 66% of epic TV commercials or sponsored art – but now
consumers prefer to buy from companies that many are starting to take on the more purposeful
have implemented programmes to give back to role of NGOs. Most Contagious 2012 features
society. Citizens the world over are demanding examples of brands acting as lifesavers, health
that advertising speeds up its radical shift from and wellbeing networks, educators, ecologists,
perfection to honesty, from control to collaboration. technology incubators and – in the case of the
Red Bull Stratos mission from the edge of space –
In Contagious Magazine’s recent case study
daredevil rocket scientists.
on IBM (Issue 33) we looked at how one of the
world’s biggest brands has re-engineered its Maybe we should all be aiming higher.
smarter commerce principles around the ‘Chief
Executive Consumer’. This is a business philosophy
Paul Kemp-Robertson /
also endorsed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos:
Co-founder & Editorial Director
‘Above all else, align with customers. Win when
they win. Win only when they win.’
4
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
5. Fleishman-Hillard / Introduction
By Dave Senay
You’re about to read remarkable stories about people and brands that are pushing
the boundaries of creativity and innovation. How branding is reinventing itself to
meet real human needs, delivering tools and services that truly improve our lives,
how social media is morphing into social business. And that’s just for starters.
Most Contagious is about the structure, nature and purpose of business itself,
and incorporates society as a whole. Creativity is breaking out of the confinements
of communications and marketing to the bigger, deeper role it needs to play in the
transformation of our organisations and society.
Businesses are rising and crashing faster than ever. We see this in the collapse
of the boundaries that used to separate public relations from marketing, reputation
management from brand marketing. These labels seem so irrelevant today. Your
brand is your reputation. Your reputation is your behaviour. How you are is who
you are.
This means our organisations must become exceptionally clear and aligned around
their core values, purpose and character. So we must communicate and behave in
a manner that is consistent with our beliefs. Businesses must define and know their
purpose and ensure that any marketing communication aligns with that. ‘Consumers’
need to be treated as people and provided with genuinely useful tools and services.
We need to look beyond the value of their latest transaction, towards building
lasting relationships.
Most Contagious will provide you with the inspiration. The next step is to channel
that into actions that make a difference. Over to you.
Dave Senay, President and CEO of Fleishman-Hillard
Most Contagious, in partnership with Fleishman-Hillard
5
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
6. Movements /
Evolution and
empowerment
As we pound towards the finish line of
2012, we can finally glance back on the
landmark events, movements and socio-
economic shifts that have shaped the last
12 months.
We’ll try and save you the blood and sweat but
we can’t guarantee not to tear up a little when
replaying the collective glory of the Olympic
Games or Obama’s choking speech to his victo-
rious campaign staff… but more on that later.
In 2011, we described how the torrent of infor-
mation, collaboration and distribution afforded by
the web was putting pressure not just on global
industries, but also on governments and estab-
lished social infrastructures. This year may have
been less riotous, but it hasn’t failed to present
significant fodder for the increasingly connected,
enlightened and empowered world to sink its
tweet-sharpened teeth into. So let’s begin…
6
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
8. movements /
evolution and
empowerment
term in office. He declared victory on Twitter
and then Facebook shortly after the first US
network made the announcement. The now
infamous ‘Four more years’ picture used by
his team has since become the most shared
in history, racking up a record 4.4m Likes on
Facebook and over 817,000 retweets.
tinyurl.com/mashable-romney-obama
tinyurl.com/social-media-election2012
Disintermediation / Crowdfunding on the Kickstarter blog show that as of expectations of backers, clarifying in its
Admittedly it hardly trips off the tongue, but 31 August, Games had racked up $50m, blog posts that the platform ‘is not a shop’
disintermediation (that’s cutting out the mid- beating Film ($42m) Design ($40m) Music and there will be no equity crowdfunding or
dle man) has been one of the hottest topics ($25m) and Technology ($16m). IPO made available. The process currently
in the Contagious office this year. tinyurl.com/9trtdlp remains firmly rooted in gifting, not owner-
ship, although this hasn’t stopped many
On 19 November, video game designer
Despite the success of Kickstarter, 2012 economists claiming that the real revolution
Chris Roberts smashed the record for the
has also revealed potential cracks in the will come when backers will be able to obtain
most crowdfunding ever raised for a new
crowdfunding model. In November Kick- equity in exchange for their investment.
title – US$6.2m – pledged by PC gamers
around the world to see his space sim, Star starter was sued by 3D Systems – a leading tinyurl.com/c9fw38m
Citizen, get made. The generous gamers maker of 3D printers – which claimed that
won’t get hold of an alpha version of the its patents were being infringed by a device Disintermediation / Fifty Shades of Grey
title for at least another year, but their faith made by an MIT-bred company, Formlabs, Lastly, we can’t cover disintermediation
and investment is a perfect example of how which secured over $2.9m on the crowd- without recognising the amateur success
crowdfunding has matured in 2012. funding platform. As more established com- story of 2012 – E.L. James’ (aka Brit-
tinyurl.com/9amw3tc panies start to see their offering undercut by ish author Erika Leonard’s) erotic novel
crowdfunded challenger brands, perhaps Fifty Shades of Grey. Although eventually
it is inevitable that the rigour and legality published through a traditional publisher
Roberts sourced $2.1m of his funding
of Kickstarter projects will be increasingly (Random House subdivision Vintage
through Kickstarter, with roughly 34,000
called into question. Crowdfunded legal Books), Fifty Shades started out as some-
backers donating an impressive average of
representation anyone? what niche Twilight fan fiction written under
$62 each. This is consistent with current
behaviour on the platform, with video games tinyurl.com/c8aw8my the pen name ‘Snowqueen’s Icedragon’.
receiving more funding this year than any It lived first on fanfiction.com, then on
Kickstarter is working hard to manage the
other category. Official figures published Leonard’s own website, FiftyShades.com,
8
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
9. before being released as an e-book, join- The standard in mass, online education was set by the Kahn Acad- It is two of Thrun’s colleagues at Stanford, Andrew Ng and
ing the hundreds of thousands of other emy, founded in 2006 by Bangladeshi MIT and Harvard Business Daphne Koller, who are responsible for 2012’s other standout
titles now being sold directly from author School graduate, Salman Khan. This non-profit organisation relies source of online education – Coursera. Unlike the Kahn Academy
to reader on Amazon. on donations for funding and has delivered over 200 million lessons or Udacity, Coursera partners with 33 existing universities such as
Only after it gained significant traction on (approx. 3,600 of which are available on YouTube) across topics Princeton, Michigan and Pennsylvania to make some of their most
e-readers around the world was it selected including medicine, art history, macroeconomics and computer sci- popular courses available for free online. It has already attracted
for re-release by Vintage and proceeded to ence. What 2012 has brought, however, is a new generation of 1.8m students since April, as well as $16m in first round venture
become the best-selling book in British his- alternatives inspired by Kahn’s original dream to provide a ‘high funding. As Koller explained to the Guardian newspaper in Novem-
tory and spend a record 20 weeks at No.1 quality education to anyone, anywhere’. ber, ‘We had a million users faster than Facebook, faster than Ins-
on USA Today’s best-selling books list. Like www.khanacademy.org tagram. This is a wholesale change in the educational ecosystem.’
or loathe Fifty Shades, it proved that any- www.coursera.org
one with a basic knowledge of BDSM and a Most notable is Udacity, founded by Stanford professor and
passion for the written word could become Google Fellow Sebastian Thrun. Unlike the Kahn Academy, Udac- So there you have 2012, a year in which the novelty of social media
one of the most successful authors of all ity is a private organisation funded by venture capital firm, Charles wore off and in its place arrived a new standardised expectation for
time. Go internet. River Ventures, as well as other companies such as Google that how we can interact with the world. This includes controlling what
sponsor specific courses in exchange for access to the most products are made and how much we pay for them, right through
Democratised Education / promising talent. Launched in February this year, Udacity currently to accessing the kind of education that will create and empower
Potentially the most socially significant specialises in computer science, with courses including Program- whole new generations of technological entrepreneurs from differ-
well to spring forth from the internet in ming Languages and Applied Cryptography, although 2013 will ent nations around the world. Think we’re making progress now?
2012 is that of democratised educational see HTML5 Game Development added to the syllabus amongst Something tells us we ain’t seen nothing yet…
resources. Put simply, online learning that other new subjects. Udacity currently has approximately 400,000
now extends far beyond a bodged Sweet students worldwide.
Child O’ Mine guitar tutorial on YouTube… www.udacity.com
9
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
10. Purpose /
Playing a Purpose has been an overriding
theme of 2012, with companies
role in
realising that a brand doesn’t exist
inside a bubble of happy, shiny
marketing; it has a role to play in
society
society.
As David Hieatt, founder of Hiut Denim
(featured in our Small But Perfectly
Formed section), says: ‘The great brands
of the world make a great product but
also have a clear understanding of their
purpose. They understand the “why” as
well as the “what” and the “how”.’
One company that embodies this is
US restaurant chain Chipotle, with its
‘Food with Integrity’ mission that pushes
the organic food agenda and fights the
cause of beleaguered farming communi-
ties in America’s bread basket states.
Contagious was delighted to see its
animated Back to the Start film (featured
in Most Contagious 2011) win a flurry of
awards this year, with its prize money for
the Grandy appropriately donated to the
Chipotle Cultivate Foundation.
10
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
11. Movements
The New
World Order
Another Contagious favourite, the out- The Daktari 1525 service enables Safa- ping their network, linking them up with
door brand Patagonia, pinned its sus- ricom customers to dial 1525 on their local people who are part of the scheme.
tainable colours to the mast in January by mobiles 24/7 to be connected, via Safa- Members can even call people directly to
becoming a certified B Corp, an idea that’s ricom call centres, to one of 50 qualified arrange giving blood in an emergency.
gathering momentum across the US. There doctors recruited by Dial-a-Doc. The call
By using its infrastructure to extend its
are now some 650 B Corps, validated by charge of Kshs20 per minute (to cover the
remit in this way, Tata Docomo is acting as
the non-profit B Lab based on meeting doctors’ fees, rather than the connection
an NGO, stepping in to provide the kind of
specific standards for social and environ- charge) is subsidised by Safaricom, which
life-saving scheme that it could take gov-
mental performance, legal accountability recently slashed it in half to widen access.
ernments years to set up.
and transparency. The service currently handles around 2,000
calls per day. Featured in Contagious 31. www.bloodlineclub.com
The fact is, people like to be good. One of
Contagious’ choice stats of the year came The company continues to explore new Renault / MOBILIZ
from Nielsen’s Global, Socially Conscious ways to transform people’s lives via its
To help the socially or economically
Consumer report, which found that 66% of mobile network. In October, it joined forces
excluded in France, automotive company
consumers around the world prefer to buy with mobile technology company M-KOPA
Renault launched Renault MOBILIZ in July.
from companies that have implemented to make solar power accessible to low
This initiative aims to make transport more
programmes to give back to society. Below income families in rural Kenya via a pay-as-
accessible for those who can’t afford to
are our top picks from the year. you-go Safaricom SIM card.
own or maintain a car.
tinyurl.com/daktari1525
Safaricom / Daktari 1525 Renault is working with volunteer garages Renault has long held the ambition of pro-
To differentiate itself in the Kenyan telco Tata Docomo / BloodLine Club and dealerships in its network, called viding mobility for all, but this programme
marketplace, the company behind success- ‘Socially Responsible Renault Garages’ or shows the automotive company moving
Telecoms companies are a vital link between
ful mobile money transfer service M-Pesa ‘Garages Renault Solidaires’, to develop beyond its core product to invest in mobility
people. Indian telecoms service Tata Doc-
has rolled out a mobile health service. affordable repair schemes for those on low services. With lack of access to transport
omo has demonstrated the potential of
incomes. It is also partnering with NGO being one of the major causes of social
With just one doctor for every 10,000 using this link for philanthropic purposes
Voiture & Co to support initiatives such as and economic exclusion, Renault MOBILIZ
people in Kenya, Safaricom (working with with a peer-to-peer blood donor matching
car-pooling, community transport, and low- offers a genuine lifeline to the eight million
agency Squad Digital, Nairobi) joined service called the BloodLine Club.
cost car hire and has launched (with an ini- people in France living below the poverty
forces with Dial-a-Doc Ltd, an organisation Volunteer blood donors sign up via their tial budget of €5m) an investment company, line – who wouldn’t otherwise be custom-
specialising in the dissemination of medical mobile, Facebook or Twitter by entering a MOBILIZ Invest, to finance companies ers of Renault, but may well yet become so.
information, to improve access to expert few details including, of course, their blood developing innovative mobility solutions for Featured in Contagious issue 32.
medical advice for those living in rural areas type. In the event that someone needs people in social and financial difficulty. www.renault-mobiliz.com
and relieve pressure on overstretched out- blood, they’ll be pinged, and should they
patient departments. need blood themselves, they can then
11
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
12. Movements
The New
World Order
Banco Popular / The Most Popular Song song quickly topped the music charts and
Surprise hit of the year comes courtesy of helped spark debate about the local econ-
Puerto Rico’s largest bank. Showing how omy and the country’s future. The campaign
a sense of purpose can be aligned with a culminated with the bank organising a free
company’s mission (and achieve a PR win concert (featuring El Gran Combo) for over
in the process), Banco Popular set out to 60,000 Puerto Ricans in January this year.
revive the country’s economy this year by The campaign generated $2.3m in earned
effecting a fundamental cultural change. media and helped Banco Popular to soar
In Puerto Rico, 60% of the population to an unprecedented 80% on a reputation
lives on government handouts and this wel- index. It won the PR Grand Prix at Cannes,
fare culture is celebrated in the hit song No fulfilling the jury’s criteria of a strong idea,
Hago Más Ná (‘I Do Nothing’). Based on audience impact and a sense of purpose.
this insight, Banco Popular – with agency Featured in Contagious issue 32.
JWT, San Juan – approached popular salsa www.popular.com
band El Gran Combo to re-write their song www.jwt.com/themostpopularsong
so that the lyrics extolled the benefits of
work rather than advocating laziness. The
12
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
13. Marketing as
Service Design /
Utility not noise
Brands have long taken a good,
hard look at consumer behaviour.
But what if, instead of using that
insight to serve people with the
right type of ad at the right time,
marketers considered adding value
to the lives of those people, or
removing pain points?
That’s a service-design approach to mar-
keting. We saw it in action in March this
year when Dubai pizza-delivery company
Red Tomato realised that because of
the number of languages spoken in the
Emirate, each phone-based order took
nine minutes for customers to complete.
No amount of leaflets through doors
would ever overcome that situation.
13
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
14. MArketing as
service design /
utility not noise
But what about – courtesy of TBWA RAAD
– a Bluetooth-enabled fridge-magnet button
that instantly sent an order for that customer’s
favourite pizza via mobile when pressed? That
would revolutionise the whole process. It’s a
marketing solution so frictionless and, dare no longer feels like you’re being sold to, merely offered help and utility. Fea-
we say it, magical, that similar fridge magnets tured in Contagious issue 30.
were quickly developed by Evian in France tinyurl.com/TramApp
and Turkish telco Turkcell. Featured in Con-
tagious issues 31, 32 and 33. Delta / Fly Delta App
www.redtomato.biz/magnet US airline Delta updated its mobile app to allow customers to track their
tinyurl.com/c6qnfet bags once they disappeared down those mysterious airport conveyor belts.
Passengers who have scanned their bag tag can keep updated on its loca-
Västtrafik / Tram Sightseeing tion even while on a flight, offering a little peace of mind that, even if it’s not
Gothenburg’s local transport authority, Väst- where it’s meant to be, it’s at least not lost. A YouTube video, Your Bag’s
trafik, was keen to get tourists off expensive Journey via Wieden+Kennedy, New York, showing what goes on ‘behind
tour buses and onto its tram network. So rather those rubber flaps’ has now cleared the 1.5 million view-count mark. The
than bombard them with ads, it took a service- app also allows people to check-in, view updates to flight and boarding
design approach to the problem. Created by times, change their allocated seat and rebook a cancelled flight. The app is
Forsman & Bodenfors, a free Tram Sight- part of a wider personalisation drive from the airline, which includes making
seeing app guided people to their nearest a range of back-end logistics data, including passenger profiles and ecom-
tram stop. Once they were on a moving tram, merce behaviour, available to customers. Featured in Contagious 30.
the app used the phone’s GPS to play an tinyurl.com/DeltaAndroid
audio tour triggered by the user’s specific tinyurl.com/DeltaiTunes
location, telling travellers about landmarks as www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocbxS5aWUSo
they passed them. Each tour told users when
to change trams and dropped them back at Orca Chevrolet / Rescue Drive
their original location 45 minutes later. Thinking more broadly about the customer journey than just how to entice
Forsman & Bodenfors told Contagious people onto its forecourt, the Orca Chevrolet car dealership in Brazil took
that the goal was ‘to produce advertising an insightful approach to promoting the new Chevrolet Cobalt. Its Rescue
that didn’t feel like advertising’. It’s an objec- Drive campaign, created by Monumenta, Brasilia, saw the business part-
tive that encapsulates marketing as service nering with a local breakdown service to send a new Cobalt (along with
design: providing something so useful that it a salesman) to people stranded with broken-down vehicles. While the
14
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
15. rescue company towed their faulty car away, Orca Chev- With more than 498,000 coded messages written and
rolet allowed motorists to drive themselves home in the new an average site dwell time of five minutes 30 seconds,
Cobalt. the brand not only positioned itself as a trusted friend to
At its core, Rescue Drive was a smart way to add value teenage girls, but potentially provided it with a huge quan-
to people’s lives while also running a product demo pre- tity of personal insights about its target market. Featured in
cisely at the time when drivers may be considering a new Contagious issue 31.
purchase, i.e. when their old car had crapped out on them. www.dermacydteencode.com.br
Go-getting managers looking to maximise productivity will
no doubt like the way it mobilised showroom staff and stock Bupa / FoodSwitch
into action instead of passively waiting for customers to In a bid to help Australians make healthier food choices,
come to them. Featured in Contagious issue 32. medical health insurance provider Bupa launched its
www.orca.com.br FoodSwitch app in January. Supermarket shoppers can
use the app to scan food to view traffic-light coded info
Dermacyd / Teen Code about the saturated fat, sugar and salt content in more
In an attempt to become part of Brazilian girls’ conversa- than 20,000 products, as well as receive suggestions for
tions, intimate soap Dermacyd Teen with Publicis, São healthier options. The app, based on three years’ research
Paulo created an online tool which allowed people to trans- by The George Institute for Global Health, was down-
late social-media posts into Teen Code – a secret language loaded 26,000 times in the first 24 hours of its release – a
of symbols, numbers and letters. In order to write in Teen figure which rose to 75,000 in just five days, making it Aus-
Code, people first had to gain access to the site by proving tralia’s most downloaded free app on iTunes.
they were a girl – answering questions such as ‘When is Unlike traditional advertising, services are able to truly mani-
the best time to moisturise?’ Highly secret messages could fest brand promise and FoodSwitch is a great example of
then be encoded and posted publicly across social net- this. As a medical health insurance provider, Bupa’s mar-
works, allowing friends to copy them and translate using the keting may encourage, persuade and influence people to
same Dermacyd site – as long as they could pass the ‘girls adopt a healthy lifestyle. This app goes one step further, actu-
only’ entry criteria. ally helping people to attain it. Featured in Contagious 30.
tinyurl.com/foodswitch
15
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
16. Divine Data /
Insight by
numbers If you were in any doubt as to the
value of being more data literate,
this year’s race for the White House
should have you dusting down your
calculator.
So-called ‘big data’ proved its worth for
President Obama, but for brands and
marketers the challenge remains of what
to measure, how to do it and how to act
upon it. According to 2012 research
from the Corporate Executive Board,
marketers depend on data for just 11%
of customer related decisions.
It’s not just companies that are grap-
pling with data: new tools are emerging
to help more people ‘divine’ personal
insights from their physiology too, to
help them improve their health and
wellbeing.
16
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
17. Divine data /
insight by
numbers
Predicting Presidents / accessible. All that changed this year when Nike’s Digital Sport unit, work-
When asked by a reporter what lesson would-be 2016 US Presidential ing with R/GA and AKQA, launched Fuel, a new metric for measuring
candidates should glean from the 2012 election, David Axelrod, chief physical activity, and a piece of kit to collect the required input data, Fuel-
strategist for the re-elected Barack Obama, replied: ‘I would invest in peo- Band. Nike effectively now sees itself as a tech company.
ple… who understand where the technology is going and what the poten- The sleek black wristband measures steps taken, calories and time spent
tial will be by 2016 for communications, for targeting, for mining data, to exercising via a three axis accelerometer to work out a Nike Fuel score
make precision possible in terms of both persuasion and mobilisation.’ His against a daily target. The effect? Throughout the day, Nike – mimicking the
words will no doubt also be ringing in the ears of CMOs the world over. relationship between the brand’s founders, coach Bill Bowerman and his
With an analytics team five times larger than in 2008 and on the back of college athlete Bill Knight – offers the wearer encouragement to be more
a promise from campaign manager Joe Messina ‘to measure every single active.
thing in this election’, the sophisticated Democrat data machine (known as A double Cannes Lions Grand Prix success, Stefan Olander, Nike’s VP
Narwhal) crunched its way to helping raise over $1bn in campaign funds, of digital sport, told us in Contagious 32 that the thinking behind FuelBand
bagging Obama 1.25 million more votes from 18 to 24-year-olds than in his was a customer centric sense of purpose: ‘We don’t start with technology
previous outing. Its influence on the final result was emphatic. or the potential profit, we always start with the athlete. I think that’s an
But data-crunching wasn’t solely the preserve of backroom pollsters: important distinction, because when you do that the other things follow.’
many regular voters seeking smart analysis turned their attention from tra- www.nike.com/FuelBand
ditional political commentators towards stats junkie Nate Silver. Silver’s
predictive modelling, hosted on blog FiveThirtyEight at the New York Times Adidas / miCoach Elite System
website, correctly predicted the race’s outcome in all 50 states, often in the Not to be left behind, adidas has been making progress with its own per-
face of staunch scepticism from the old guard. At one point in the election sonal fitness tracking tool, miCoach. Football could be on the brink of its very
run-in, a fifth of traffic to the New York Times website visited Silver’s blog. own Moneyball moment, after the German sportswear brand announced in
fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com July a deal with Major League Soccer (MLS) in the US, whereby every
player in the league next season will be equipped with a miCoach Elite
The Wearable Watchmen / System data cell. The data transmitted from the devices during games
The Quantified Self movement has gathered momentum over the past few (including metrics such as heart rate, speed, acceleration, distance, field
years, but for most wannabe self-analysts there has been something miss- position and, power) will help coaches on the touchline make better selec-
ing: simple, affordable (and cool) technology to make personal analytics tion decisions based on performance levels. The MLS is also promising to
17
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
18. Divine data /
insight by
numbers
make at least some of that data available to installed the app to bid with their kilometres. Life Stadium. The aim was to provide bet-
fans for greater insight into their favourite A total of 1,000 km were offered for the first ter experiences for fans, for whose custom
teams. Contagious 33. pair of Nike Free 5.0. Contagious 31. the stadium now competes with the ever-
Meanwhile, for those a touch shy about Meanwhile, UK insurance broker Mota- more sophisticated comforts of home and
their self-quantifying ways, help may be quote partnered with Dutch GPS naviga- big screen HDTV. The result? By running
at hand from Indiegogo-funded company tion specialists TomTom in February to cre- data from inputs such as information from
Misfit Wearables. Its first product, Shine, ate a new data-driven policy that gives lower turnstile passages, weather reports, traffic
is the size of a quarter and discreetly clips premiums to people who drive better. The conditions, and social media updates, IBM’s
on to clothing to collect activity data. It Fair Pay policy sees customers provided Intelligent Operations Centre will soon be
syncs with an iPhone when placed on the with a modified satnav that sends details able to advise stadium management and
phone screen without a Bluetooth or cable about their driving back to the insurer in fans in real time on anything from where to
connection. real time, as well as to the screen, meaning find a car park space, to which parts of the
drivers can modify and improve their driv- stadium have best performing concessions.
www.adidas.com/us/micoach
ing style whilst Motaquote can offer fairer See IBM case study in Contagious 33.
www.misfitwearables.com
deals. Contagious issue 30. Meanwhile over at Flushing Meadows, as
Performance-Based Data Deals / nikemexico.mx/subasta part of its sponsorship of the US Open, the
www.motaquote.co.uk IBM analysts were crunching match stats to
For those inclined to track and share data
offer fans new insights into the strategies of
on their physical performance, benefits and
IBM / the competing players. The Game Changer
offers lie in wait from brands keen to lure or
Over the last year, business software spe- Wall was updated in real time to show not
reward high value customers.
cialist IBM has been working with sports only real-time predictions on match out-
Nike in Mexico used data generated comes, but also how player performance
organisations to help fans understand and
from Nike+ gizmos to reward runners in a affected social media sentiment.
analyse performance in new ways, whilst
week of online auctions. Bid Your Sweat,
also showcasing its technology and data tinyurl.com/85fvbyb
with JWT, Mexico, saw the kilometres that
capabilities. www.usopen.org/ibm
runners amassed converted into currency
which could be bid on products such as At the start of the year, the software com-
Nike FuelBands. The further they ran, or the pany partnered with NFL team Miami Dol-
better they performed, the more ‘currency’ phins to install some of its Smarter Cities
they amassed. In two weeks, 5,000 people analytics solutions into the franchise’s Sun
18
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
19. Technology /
Big Battles,
Small Victors
Patent Wars erupted into
mainstream consciousness in 2012,
with Apple beating Samsung in the
first of the year’s major quarrels.
Technology consumers are beginning to
understand the capital value of patents,
both in defending a company’s intel-
lectual property and litigating against
others, often labeled Patent Trolls. As
one Silicon Valley insider told us, it’s like
an arms race, with major tech compa-
nies comparing their stacks of patents
against each other.
19
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
20. Technology /
Big Battles,
Small Victors
entrance to the company’s I/O developer conference, where Google out-
fitted skydivers and bike riders in the glasses and got them to live display
their stunts through a Google+ hangout before meeting co-founder Ser-
gey Brin onstage. Google sold a prototype of its glasses to the develop-
ers who attended the conference for $1,500. This project illustrates the
potential of how wearable computing can make it more seamless for con-
sumers to share and access information. In September, during New York
City’s Fashion Week, Diane von Furstenberg’s fashion show saw mod-
els wearing the glasses striding down the runway. After the show Google
published a YouTube video of footage captured by models, stylists, and the
designer herself. Contagious 31.
plus.google.com/+projectglass
The strategic flow of rare earth metals and the conditions in which prod-
Rethink Robotics / Baxter
ucts are assembled have become part of the transparency discussion for
major brands. Investigation into Foxconn, supplier to Apple and others, Baxter Rodney Brooks, world-renowned robotics expert and professor
has sparked ethical questions around consumption and compensation. emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with his com-
Meanwhile, makers in the developed world are debating the efficacy of pany Rethink Robotics, has created Baxter, a robot designed to help US
robots versus humans, to assemble parts in factories, to choose pills in manufacturers. Baxter was created to be more human than existing robots,
pharmacies, to drive cars and to write articles. with eyes on a screen that register emotions like happiness or surprise.
Baxter adapts to changing conditions and can be taught to perform new
Small prototypes point the way forward. We saw many types of wearable tasks. Importantly, at $22,000 Baxter is cheaper than most traditional
tech offer additional dimensions and functionality. And it’s getting easier robots, which may help revive US manufacturing. Contagious 33.
to raise money, with Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites continuing
www.rethinkrobotics.com
to power intriguing projects. But, watch what you make, and how long
you take: Kickstarter has just been named in a patent case, and murmurs
about project fulfillment times and realistic goals versus hype and fraud are Disney Research / REVEL
becoming louder… Disney’s research arm is working with academics from Carnegie Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, to develop technology that will add artificial tactile
Google / Project Glass sensations to almost any surface or object. REVEL, by Disney Research,
Pittsburgh, is a wearable system that can add textures to furniture, touch
By far this year’s sexiest piece of tech is Google’s Project Glass, from the
screens, walls, art, plastic or even human skin. The system injects a weak
company’s X Lab. Essentially a pair of augmented reality spectacles, the
electrical signal into a user’s body, so when they touch the surface of another
device allows users to see messages, calendars, maps and even record
object connected to the system, it becomes augmented with an additional
and stream live video. After launching in April, Glass made a daredevil
20
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
21. Technology /
Big Battles,
Small Victors
artificial texture. For instance, while wearing the REVEL the game, or charging after a free trial. Hacking is encouraged – the device
system, you may be able to feel the texture of stuffed tor- opens with standard screws and rooting it will not void the warranty. This
toises’ shells through a plexi case. The creators believe the has had the snowball effect of encouraging prominent developers to commit
mobile, inexpensive technology could be used to let people games to it. Robotoki founder Robert Bowling has announced an episodic
access private tactile information on public touchscreens, prequel to Human Element exclusively to Ouya. He told PocketGamer:
experience personal sensations in applications or games, ‘We really need to adapt our experiences and universes to the device our
or get dynamic tactile feedback from posters and maps. players are engaging with most.’ Contagious 32.
We can also envisage how the system could add an extra www.ouya.tv
textural layer to entertainment content, advertisements or
shopping websites. Contagious 33. Nest /
tinyurl.com/disneyrevel Former chief architect at Apple, Tony Fadell, has taken the minimalism and
sleekness of the iPhone and adapted it for a $250 home thermostat which
Boxer8 / Ouya claims to cut energy bills. The Nest Learning Thermostat, through Fadell’s
Riding the cultural wave for all things open source, startup company Nest Labs in Palo Alto, ‘learns’ as it is used, adapting to a house-
Boxer8 and designer Yves Béhar created an Android- holder’s schedule and using wifi to be ‘weather-aware’. An example of next
based games console costing $99 called Ouya. Funded on generation connected home appliances, it can also be controlled remotely
Kickstarter and also involving former Microsoft VP of games via a mobile app. Contagious 29.
publishing Ed Fries, the system includes a software devel- www.nest.com
opment kit. All games will be free to play via the console,
with developers setting their own prices for items bought in
21
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
22. Technology /
Big Battles,
Small Victors
Leap / Google’s driverless car project became more significant this year when
As the tracking technology powering the Kinect passes through the ini- Nevada was the first state to allow the cars to operate on its roads. Florida
tial novelty phase, companies like Leap Motion aim to make faster, more and California have followed as the tech giant lobbies for legislation per-
accurate 3D modeling and response technology. The Leap device sits in mitting its autonomous vehicles.
a compact housing about the same size of an iPod and is set to retail In a world where the cost of connected technologies (such as RFID and
for $70. Leap’s creators claim it’s up to 200 times more accurate than NFC) is falling and smartphone penetration continues to rise, the inter-
Kinect, thus enabling it to implement detailed gesture-based commands. net of things has been on the theoretical table for a while. EVRYTHNG’s
Co-founder and CTO David Holz is a former fluid mechanics researcher engine helps manufacturers create unique digital identities for individual
for NASA. objects. Drinks behemoth Diageo used EVRYTHNG to transform whiskey
leapmotion.com bottles in Brazil so that smartphone users could scan a code on a bot-
tle to add personalised Father’s Day video messages. It has also used
the platform to create applications that help track products in the supply
chain and let customers ‘check in’ to products to receive loyalty rewards.
Venky Balakrishnan, global vice president for marketing innovation, Dia-
geo, said: ‘We now have a profound strategic opportunity to transform our
physical products into owned digital media, which can communicate per-
sonalised information and experiences to consumers, exactly when and
where they want it.’ Contagious 31.
Having pioneered Steam, a software delivery service for its games,
developer Valve is joining game industry heavies including Unity, id Soft-
ware, Epic Games and more on the Oculus Rift, a virtual-reality headset
for gaming. The diagonal field of view of the prototype is 110 degrees,
compared with earlier models, which had only 40, and the headset boasts
minimal processing delays. Founder Palmer Luckey was able to convince
more than 9,500 Kickstarter backers to support the project, buying in to
access the software development kit before the general public and raising
Ones to Watch / over $2.4 million. Expected delivery date? January, 2013.
Smart Sand comes from MIT’s Distributed Robotics Laboratory and
bit.ly/H9Kd7x
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Essentially,
bit.ly/GYQHu1
Smart Sand can self-assemble to copy objects, passing messages www.evrythng.com
between grains to create structure. From there, the structure can be shuf- www.oculusvr.com
fled off to a permanent assembly protocol, like a 3D printer, leaving the
smart sand to replicate the next item. Contagious 31.
22
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
23. Design /
Personalised
Play In 2012 the increasing affordability
and quality of 3D printing has
seen the process become far more
mainstream, with commercial 3D
printer Cubify (priced at a very
reasonable $1299) and Kickstarter-
funded Formlabs’ Form1 ($3299)
leading the way.
Brands have reacted, utilising the
technology and rethinking manufacturing
processes in order to meet demands
for products that are personalised and
adaptable. Meanwhile hackers, makers
and intrepid amateurs are generating
and sharing their own 3D printing
designs with the help of sites such as
Autodesk’s 123D.
Here, in our round-up of 2012’s design
innovations, we bounce from new-age
architecture and sustainable transport
to playable buildings and shoes that find
the way home for you.
23
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF
24. design /
Personalised
play
Disney / D-Tech Me ABSOLUT / Unique
Disney’s tales give children the chance to ABSOLUT’s iconic bottle has long been used as a creative medium, but in
dream that they are about to be plucked September the Pernod Ricard-owned vodka brand outdid itself with a lim-
from obscurity and transformed into royalty, ited edition of four million uniquely designed and numbered bottles.
thanks to a genie or charming prince. This Collaborating with Stockholm-based agencies Family Business, Great
year, Disney gave wannabe child princesses Works, and Jung Relations, ABSOLUT re-engineered its production pro-
the chance to see what they would look like cess to create what the company describes as ‘carefully orchestrated ran-
as Sleeping Beauty or Snow White thanks to domness’. Splash guns sprayed a range of 35 colours onto the bottles,
some in-store 3D printing. while complex coating, pattern and placement algorithms ensured that each
Children at the World of Disney Store in specific combination was never repeated. The bright colours and one-off
Florida could use the D-Tech Me experience designs ensure that the bottles create a splash on the shelf, and are desir-
to capture multiple angles of their face, which able items that people want to keep, even if the vodka has long since disap-
was digitally reconstructed using 3D printing peared. Contagious 33.
technology to create a personalised Disney absolut.com/unique
Princess figurine. Costing $99.95, the prin-
cesses were seven inches high and could be Tesla S /
further customised to match their creator’s
Tesla’s S model sedan’s combination of performance, style and efficiency
eye, hair and skin colour.
saw it named Motor Trend’s Car of the Year – the first vehicle without a
D-Tech Me charmingly illustrates the poten- combustion engine to do so.
tial applications of 3D printed products for
Launched in June 2012, the four door electric car manages an impressive
brands, creating toys that are affordable and
range of 300 miles on one charge using the 85kW h battery, and takes only
unique. The experience ran from August to
30 minutes for a half charge. It aims to compete with the best gas-pow-
November and Disney is considering rolling
ered cars, and sold out the 5,000 models produced in 2012, costing from
it out as a permanent fixture. Contagious 33.
$60,000 for the basic model. The Californian-based manufacturer aims to
Japanese agency Party has also been ena- sell 20,000 units in 2013 at an increased price.
bling 3D portrait miniatures. Visitors were 3D www.teslamotors.com/models
scanned in a photobooth in Harajuku and then
awaited their tiny selves. Statuettes are avail- Coca-Cola / Coke Beat Box
able in three sizes and cost from ¥21,000
Created by young London-based architects Pernilla Ohrstedt and Asif
($255).
Khan, Coca-Cola’s iconic pavilion at the Olympic Park was surrounded by a
tinyurl.com/Disney-D-Tech perpetual queue of people waiting for their opportunity to ‘play’ the building.
www.omote3d.com
Photo / Heatherwick Studio
24
MOVEMENTs purpose service data Technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment SBPF