Decode

When most people think think of technology they think of nerds, punch cards, and Warhammer fanatics. The problem is; most people are wrong. Digital technologies today are, in fact, providing innovative and creative tools for artists and designers. We’re seeing a new era of technological interaction, the experiences we get from ‘new media art’, such as the T-Mobile flashmobs, are our reward in this new era.

Last Friday the coolest kids in Wunderman (the planning team) went on a school trip to sample the V&A’s finest at the Decode exhibition. We asked some of them for their highlights.

Angus MacDonald, Information Manager

My personal favourite was the Weave Mirror by Daniel Rozin. The installation is deceptive; outwardly simplistic yet inwardly complex. It’s made up of a number of pieces of weaved fibre connected to a computer system, as you moved around the piece reacts to produce a shadow of the viewer reacting to both lateral movement and depth of field. I particularly like this piece for its steam punk aesthetics; they way in which it ties the old and the new together.

Will Poskett, Grad Planner

I was surprised by a lot of things that day, not least of which were the prices at the Imperial Student Union’s bar afterwards. My favourite piece however was Videogrid by Ross Phillips for its playful yet creatively open concept. It’s essentially a large screen made up of a number of all smaller screens on which viewers record quick snippets of themselves. At first most people just played with the exhibit, but as time went on narratives started forming between the different snippets. It’s a great piece of work with a lot of creative potential, it’s only limit is the imagination of the observer.

Laura Castrillo, Consumer Insight Analyst

I was pretty much blown away by the exhibition from the start. My particular favourites were pieces where the user was encouraged to interact. House of Cards by James Frost was a standout winner for me. You may recognise the piece as the 2008 Radiohead video. I think the thing I liked most about it was the response rate to my interactions; it was amazing how it could handle a wide range of motions in a visually stunning way.

Tom Gibby, Account Planner

My favourite was Body Paint by Mehmet Akten. Akten designs and develops tools to explore new forms of digital interaction. Body Paint is an installation which allows users to paint on a virtual canvas with their body, interpreting gestures and dance into evolving compositions. Custom software analyses, in real-time, a feed from infra-red cameras and converts shape and motion into splashes and brush-strokes of colour.

The interaction is simple – movement creates paint. Hidden in the simplicity, are subtle layers of detail; different speeds, size and types of motion create different outputs. The audience is left to discover these details by playing with the installation. While the installation is suitable for a single person, with multiple a new dynamic emerges. User-to-user interaction is born; the audience start playing with each other through the installation.

The piece is a brilliant example of digital interaction; it’s both accessible (through its simplicity) and engaging (through its colourful reward). All it needs is a Sony logo and the “Colour. Like no other” tagline; an interactive ad waiting to be deployed.

The Decode exhibition runs until the 11th of April at the V&A Museum.

The digital science of love

We’ve all come into contact with Valentine’s Day one way or another, be it through Hallmark or Teleflora’s marketing campaign or through the subtle or not so subtle hints from dearly beloveds on what they want to receive or do on Valentine’s Day.

We wanted to test our own presumptions on what items, concepts and brands would be popular in the lead up to Valentine’s Day compared to what actually happened, looking at statistics on search engine and social media traffic.

The terms we searched on can be roughly broken down into poetry, gifts, flowers, naughty stuff (e.g. Viagra, sex toys), local listings (London restaurants), dating, and brands we associated with Valentine’s Day. Most of the terms were standard stuff you would expect a consumer to be using to woo his/her Valentine – romantic poems, gifts, flowers, short breaks as well as a few terms for those people looking to get a bit more intimate than a peck on the cheek on the night of the 14^th.

For our analysis of search behaviour, we used Google Insights for Search running the search terms from 19 January through till 14 February on Google’s UK search traffic (roughly 90% the UK market). They provide results in the form of an index score which allows us to analyse who the big winners were in the lead up to Valentine’s Day.

Our hypothesis was that we would see a visible uplift over the testing period with the key differentiator being when this uplift happened. Our guesstimate was that some terms such as restaurant bookings and city breaks would see a peak comfortably before the big day as people looked to prepare things for their loved one. We envisioned other terms such as romantic poetry and dating websites would see spikes in traffic from those people who’d left it to the last minute or found themselves self consciously single on Valentine’s Day.

Romantic poetry graph

Results for romantic poetry provided no surprises with a sharp rise in traffic from the 5^th February with a peak in enquiries the day before Valentine’s Day as wannabee Lotharios prepared their woos for their dearly beloved.

Gifts and cards graphs

Results for the gifts and cards were more varied, reflecting a less consistent selection of search terms. The relatively generic search term chocolate saw little change over the period. More specific terms such as valentines gifts and valentines cards saw a massive increase in traffic over the period, with the former peaking four days earlier, reflecting those people who hadn’t left it quite to the last minute to look for ideas for their dearly beloved. The one surprise to come out of these search terms was the substantially higher search ranking for ‘gift for him’ as opposed to ‘gifts for her’ suggesting that girls don’t know what the boys want (or are simply prepared to put a bit more effort into finding out).

Flowers graph

Searches on flowers reflected the importance of Valentine’s Day to the florist trade with flowers, roses and red roses all seeing a strong growth in traffic in the lead up to Valentine’s Day. The use of more specific search terms around Valentine’s Day, valentines flowers and valentines flowers delivered drew poor results when compared to their more generic alternatives.

Dating graph

An incoming Valentine’s Day often provides the unattached with a not necessarily wanted reminder of their singleton status, so we figured that online dating would see a spike in traffic. Search traffic figures on dating websites and market leader match.com told a rather different story, with weekly spikes of traffic in the weekend, with Valentine’s Day making little difference to the number of people looking for love online.

Naughty graph

We also thought that Valentine’s Day might give an extra bit of impetus to couples’ efforts to spice up their sex lives. Here again the language of love was not just restricted to Valentine’s Day with Viagra, Cialis, sex toys, vibrator and lingerie all performing well throughout the period with no major spike. Unfortunately searches made on edible underwear, edible panties and chocolate bodypaint didn’t bring enough traffic to turn up on Google’s tracking tools – no doubt reflecting the fact that these products haven’t quite hit the mass market yet.

Brands graph

Our profile of brands in the lead up to Valentine’s Day showed up some interesting results. Paris is regularly portrayed as the City of Love and we guessed that Eurostar would see a jump in traffic as consumers looked for a romantic getaway. Our presumption proved somewhat unfounded with traffic seeing only a minor spike on 12 February – possibly a bit late for those looking for a Valentine’s city break. Lastminute.com, TopTable and Agent Provocateur were even less affected by seasonal traffic with the big winners being Ann Summers and Interflora which both saw a substantial spike in traffic. The really good news to come from it all though is the Samaritans don’t appear to have been burdened with a flood of lovelorn customers in the lead up to Valentine’s Day.

We tracked social media sentiments using Alterian’s SM2 tool which allows users to track conversations and sentiment (positive and negative) across social media channels such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogs, social networks, video/photo sharing sites and real-time alerts.

The social media analysis made for less colourful reading than the search engine results, with most of the terms follow the same trend. We monitored the whole of February and a peak of web content can be seen in the week before Valentine’s Day, no doubt with people discussing their plans, worries and hopes. The actual weekend itself saw a lull in activity over the terms searched (nudge nudge, wink wink) before trending upwards again, presumably as consumers reported back on their romantic escapades.

While the social media analysis provided no surprises, the search traffic analysis pointed to the fact that consumers’ actions online often can’t be predicted with a simple ‘finger in the air’ – even with something as seemingly transparent as Valentine’s Day.

Love notes or spam emails?

Ekaterina Barkova, email specialist

Big brands always target consumers around Valentine’s Day and email is always a popular way to reach out to them. You’ve probably received hundreds of adoring notes from brands already, right? Our resident email guru takes a look at how brands talk to their customers during the most romantic season.

Enormous numbers of emails full of pinks and reds, flowers and hearts, jewellery and perfumes landed in my inbox in the run up to Valentine’s Day. All of them talked about ‘Love’ using subject lines like ‘It's a love thing...’ and ‘Free Emergency Love Poem’ or the more standard ‘Valentine's Day Gift Guide’ and ‘Book now for Valentine's’.

It’s clear that retailers see Valentine’s Day as a great opportunity to talk to consumers and help boost sales. They advertise products as being ‘perfect’ Valentine’s gifts, use incentives like discounts or free shipping, and link through to ‘gifts for him/her’ pages. For the undecided they even offer gift vouchers!

Some brands take a different approach; offering reservations for the special day, or even a set menu and ideas for a romantic evening (above). Travel operators capitalise as well with emails full of ideas for romantic breaks and days out.

Two brands stood out with a different approach though: the National Trust and Innocent drinks (right). Instead of touting products both offered Valentine’s ideas for ‘free’. The National Trust suggested romantic places to visit, as well as things to do and see, to its members. Innocent proposed a Recipe for Love presented in a typically playful way – ice-cream, an Innocent smoothie, some mood lighting and the person you fancy.

Overwhelmingly all the emails followed a similar creative pattern: lots of images, full of bright colours, and clear calls to action such as ‘click to make your booking’ (see below).

My personal favourite was from the fashion site My-wardrobe.com (see below). It encouraged you to go and create your fashion wish list and email it to your loved one. A great idea for those with a very special, specific gift in mind! You can even win the presents you want if you are lucky enough since you are automatically added to the competition when you complete your wish list.

Hits and misses

The case studies we’ve looked at tell us a lot about what works and what doesn’t when sending ‘romantic’ emails. Here are our top tips:

• Avoid using a pushy approach; this might put your customers off. Make sure your valentine doesn’t feel pressured!
• Personalise! A generic, impersonal message isn’t something anyone wants on Valentine’s. Make your customer feel loved!
• Use romantic colours and images to attract attention. If they don’t notice you then you can’t woo them.
• Offer a tangible benefit, like a free gift. Think of it as a Valentine’s present, they’ll definitely appreciate it!

Beautiful digital ideas

Matt Muller, Lead Technical Architect

“I spend a lot of time online and in front of my computer, either working or trying to keep up with the fast paced technical and creative worlds, so I really appreciate when someone or something breaks my thoughts away from the desktop. It inspires and reminds me to think ‘outside the box’. Here are four real world innovative engaging experiences which have inspired me recently. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.”

Google Liquid Galaxy

The concept here is Google Earth split over a panorama of eight LCD screens. Users navigate using a Space Navigator device http://bit.ly/space-nav to fly around the earth, dive through the ocean or gaze at the stars.

Touchable Holography

Images are projected using holographic technology. To augment this, ultrasounds are then sent so the hand can actually ‘feel’ the impact. Experiments have shown that the ultrasounds can disrupt things from a distance and, if focused properly, they can create a sense of touch. At the end of the video is a hand underneath some raindrops, and it can apparently ‘feel’ them.

Facade Projection

There are a number of videos on YouTube showing projection onto facades. This particular projection stands out as the projections seem to interact with the building design and architecture.

Audi Car Configurator on Surface

Microsoft Surface has been around for a few years but has only recently been released commercially. Surface supports up to eight simultaneous users from all angles with 32 multi touch points. This is a whole new paradigm on design and interaction. Although there are many cool applications on Surface, I think Razorfish have done amazing work here with the experience and specifically the interface. This project has been ported over to Windows 7 recently which supports multi touch.

Mobile Digest #04#

David Murphy, editor of Mobile Marketing Magazine, ambles through the exhibitors at the Mobile World Congress, ponders new alliances between old rivals and digs deep into the current crisis over mobile data usage.

Mobile Mayhem

Mobile World Congress, the mobile industry’s annual get-together, is not a place for the faint-hearted. More than 47,000 visitors from 189 countries try to pick their way around 1,300 exhibitors scattered across eight exhibition halls, each the size of a few football pitches. After days of intense negotiations and explaining to the family that you’re away for most of half-term week, there’s the show itself to contend with.

It all makes for a somewhat gruelling few days, but for anyone in the mobile industry it’s an event you simply can’t afford to miss. The highlight of this year’s show was undoubtedly the keynote presentation by Google CEO Eric Schmidt. He used his speech to outline the company’s ‘Mobile First’ strategy, telling a captivated audience how the company’s best developers are clamouring to work on mobile projects. He also threw in a couple of very cool demos for good measure; read more here.

Google’s first appearance at the show was highly significant. Even more so given that Nokia chose not to attend this year, although it did stage a press conference round the corner from the exhibition venue; a much cheaper way of doing things. Apple may have dominated the mobile limelight over the past couple of years, but Google’s increasingly impressive Android platform will surely have a huge impact on the mobile industry over the next 18 months.

Alliance, what alliance?

In stark contrast to the bright future for Google, you look at the mobile operators and wonder what the future holds for them. The big news from their quarter of the show was the formation of the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC); an alliance of 24 operators aiming to build an open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users. A move obviously designed to address the current fragmentation in the app industry and challenge Apple’s dominance.

There are a couple of concerns here. The first is the operators’ real commitment to it (rumours are that quite a few only signed up a couple of days before the announcement). The second is what chance the WAC has of delivering anything fast. To use a nautical analogy, we are talking cruise liners, rather than speedboats, here. Talk to anyone who has dealings with a mobile operator and they will tell you that they are naturally cautious animals, who won’t do anything that might rock the boat, and anything they do end up doing takes plenty of time to do.

One mobile agency creative I spoke to about the initiative was incredulous; “getting the same operator in two different countries to co-operate is a struggle,” he told me, “the idea of 24 of them working together…well I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Data tsunami

The creation of the WAC can be seen as a direct response to Apple’s dominance but from an operator’s perspective, Apple has a lot more to answer for. Well-placed sources at the show told me that mobile operators are fighting a losing battle against what has been described as the “data tsunami” that their customers are creating.

A few years ago, people were starting to look at mobile websites on their phones, and clamouring for a more affordable way to do so (rather than charges by the megabyte). So the operators introduced flat-rate data plans: for £5 or so a month, you could use as much data as you want. The operator increases their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), the mobile user gets access to the mobile web, and the brands who advertise on these mobile websites get some traffic. A win-win-win situation!

Then along came the iPhone and all of a sudden data usage exploded as users realised they had nothing short of a pocket computer. An avalanche of other smartphones followed and the networks, quite simply, can’t cope. It’s even gone to the extent that just after Christmas O2 was forced apologise to its iPhone customers for poor service and network coverage in London.

Milk the network

There are some solutions that operators can turn to, encouraging customers to offload their connectivity onto Wi-Fi when possible, but the upshot is most likely the slow abolition of £5 a month flat fee data plans. Instead, operators are likely to offer tiered pricing, that way heavy users can continue to milk the network, so long as they are prepared to pay extra for it. What impact this will have on operator revenues, and on brands’ mobile marketing activity, remains to be seen. We’ll be exploring it in the next print edition of Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Woo week

Love was truly in the air at Wunderman as ‘Woo Week’ kicked off. Wooers were matched up randomly and had a week to win over the heart of their chosen one.

Heart shaped pink stuff was arriving daily on desks, cakes were being baked, giant cherubs appeared over Lena’s desk (much to her embarrassment) and a fantastically disturbing website was created for Fee by Ant. Tom video-graphically declared his undying love for a Sarah shaped blow up doll (a marvellous insight into the mind of a creative mad man).

But the ultimate winner was Sophie Clark’s audacious wedding proposal to Ian Till (Wunderman’s local Arsenal nutter) at a recent Premiership game.

Check out the whole ‘secret cupid’ Flickr set.

Battle of Big Thinking

What do you get when you combine big brains, free cups of coffee and a fighting spirit? The Battle of Big Thinking of course!

We’re always talking about big thinking leading to big ideas; the magic ingredient which makes brands relevant, clear and memorable. The APG Battle of Big Thinking (in partnership with Campaign) celebrates just this concept. Twenty of the biggest thinkers in marketing take it in turn to do battle with each other, the audience voting for their favourite. Think of it like University Challenge meets Fight Club.

Our latest fresh-faced addition to the planning team, Will Poskett, caught all the action. “The day was a real eye opener for me. Maybe it was an excess of coffee, but I got so excited I decided to write up all the thinking from the day! It’s a great read for anyone, whether you’re a seasoned marketing professional or just starting out. Enjoy!”

Check out the embed below or download from SlideShare.