Talk to Me is a vastly comprehensive digital innovation exhibit at MoMa NYC featuring a range of works interpreting humans’ interactions with technology, from diagrams and apps to products and spaces. Paola Antonelli, curator of the exhibit describes goal to “explore how objects communicate with us… emphasizing how the need to share information and have a dialogue with audiences is overtaking form and function in contemporary design.”
With QR codes tagging every piece and a rare encouragement to break out your iPhone and interact with the work in a major institution, the exhibit is a smart and engaging look into the closing gap between life and our relationship with more intuitive technology. Antonelli explains the dominant trend in emerging technology design in communication “people need to communicate with each other. But they also communicate with objects, with cities, with the Internet, with literally everything.”
About 20 of the projects were sourced by open submission on the online, live, micro-site facet of the exhibit, Beyond the Galleries, documenting the process of the exhibit as well as a broad database of apps, projects, interfaces, readings, discussions and more. Some notable projects include the Rubik’s Cube for the Blind by Konstantin Datz, Wolff Olins’ own Jody Hudson-Powell’s Hungry Hungry Eat Head, Tweenbot by Kacie Kinzer, along with the popular apps Talking Karl, Chris Milk’s Wilderness Downtown for Arcade Fire and AOL Artist Sascha Nordmeyer’s Communication Prothesis.
Definitely worth seeing, the exhibit runs through November 7th.
What could be easier than picking up the phone and ordering a pizza? Ordering it online, apparently.
Last year, Domino’s reportedly took in one third of its delivery orders digitally, and is showing buoyant market growth for the first time since being hit by the recession.
Online shopping is a hardly a new trend, but that doesn’t mean most brands aren’t taking their time in making the most of the opportunities it offers.
Waitrose would no doubt shudder to be classed as the Dominos of supermarkets, but it is also an established player getting in on the online act. After years of channeling the bulk of its online delivery service through Ocado, Waitrose revealed this month that it will be using it’s (recently revamped to the tune of £10m) website to compete directly with its partner.
So, what’s the secret to success for brands online? We recently carried out an e-commerce benchmarking study, reviewing 35 retailers and e-tailers from the online customer’s perspective.
The companies that scored high were the ones that got the details right:
-simple process to pay
-sending items efficiently
-fixing problems with minimal fuss
Obvious things, you’d think. But only two were nailing it consistently – Amazon and Net-a-porter (no surprises there, then). The rest are still playing catch up.
A more detailed report of the results of the Wolff Olins e-commerce study will be published on 22 May 2011.
Before you say it, I know this is a bit of a ‘retweet’ - but I couldn’t help sharing, sorry guys!
Digital. It’s everywhere. Digital, technology, technology, digital – it’s all we hear in our conference rooms, in the news and on our streets (let alone in café’s in Shoreditch).But when we talk about technology and the future, exactly what are we talking about?
The bad news is that there are way too many technologies and potential technologies out there to fully answer the question.
The good news is that help is on hand: a designer from trendwatching.com, Michell Zappa, has somehow managed to map out potential future technologies in a digestible form (and this isn’t just conjecture, this is based on research).What’s exciting about the map is that shows once and for all the future ubiquity of “digital”, from telemedicine in Biotech to recommendation engines in Artificial Intelligence.
Perhaps most importantly, it reminds us that technology will take us way beyond the traditional digital —UX, touch, mobile… It is a whole brave new world out there, and I’m excited about the positive impact we could make in those spaces.
The internet’s ability to democratize our everyday interactions has transformed the way companies create loyalty by lowering the cost of transaction and increasing the frequency of interaction. But this increase in frequency means customers are enabled to try new options or purchase products based on a personalized set of needs. They’re able to discuss a brand among an online community, often trusting unknown users more than a brand they’ve used for years without issue. The conversations themselves accelerate as bloggers and news media, through competition for eyeballs, push to get more information out faster. The consumption of all this content means that most consumers spend a large portion of their time researching potential purchases. It’s said that many purchasers of airline tickets spend more time searching for deals than they do in the air.
Brands are then competing for smaller and smaller increments of people’s time (how many seconds did you give the email promotion you received this morning?). Yet, with access to this data, these increments of attention can become transactions in their own right. We see simple clicks becoming micro-purchases where the transaction is merely consumer attention. As brands begin to understand how to read and analyze this data they can begin to see patterns that translate into, and create an image of, individual users. There are an increasing number of companies who are designing services around this analysis.
When you convert data about a transaction into information about a person, a brand begins to understand how to better create a sense of loyalty.
The music industry is the most challenged with understanding how their data leads to creating a better level of loyalty. Music’s availability online means that there is no financial incentive for a fan to purchase the music. Whatever they are looking for is available to them for free. Electing to pay for something that is available for free clearly requires high levels of brand loyalty. As a response to this, the music business is now refocused on telling the story of an artist. The artists become the vehicle for the promotion of their own mythology. The selection of which artist to highlight is based on the analysis of available user data. This is exemplified in the correlation between Justin Bieber’s immense Twitter popularity and the high volume of his sales. People aren’t paying for the music itself, they are paying for the value of participating in Bieber’s life. His fans are choosing to pay for product that is otherwise free and thereby adding greater value to that product. Their purchase is a vote to other consumers saying that the product is “popular”. This encourages other consumers to elect to pay for the product and gather the added-value to the overall experience. This conversation loop represents a new form of brand loyalty online. Taking advantage of both the power of storytelling (which, unlike product isn’t democratizable) and the effects of internet word-of-mouth.
So while our world is one where the increased frequency of interaction and the lowered cost of transaction seems to create consumer fickleness, we now know that these same tools can be used to generate greater amounts of loyalty. Because a single transaction is cheap, we have come to understand that cheap transactions can combine with a story and thereby generate more valuable transactions. We’ve learned that what story to tell can be understood through available user data patterns. And we’ve learned that by the connection between loyalty, story and transaction, brands are able to build long-term, revenue-generating connections around an experience.
Just for fun, thought we’d share this very amazing “Liquid Demo” digital treat, created by programmer Grant Kot, you simply drag the fluid around with your mouse. Click here to check it out
Also available in Iphone/Ipad app form for some visual entertainment during your holiday travels, enjoy!
Gone are the days of avoiding the Internet. The prevalence of digital and social media has made it imperative for luxury fashion brands to have an active online presence. Facebook pages, livestreaming fashion shows and e-stores have made brands, like Gucci and Prada, more accessible to everyday shoppers.
The Internet has enabled high-end fashion brands to expand their reach, create a more direct relationship with their consumers and receive instant online orders. However, the problem with making luxury brands more accessible is it puts the risk of making the brand seem ordinary.
To quote Jean-Noel Kaperer, a luxury marketing consultant, “If too many people can buy it, the brand loses its exclusivity.” This is an important concern, but the services and merchandise that are available to the wealthiest and most loyal customers may not be accessible online. As Cori Galpern, worldwide marketing and advertising director for Tom Ford International, said on a panel at the Wharton Marketing Conference, “The core for a luxury brand is a customer with considerable wealth.” This means that luxury brands have to pamper and create vastly personalized experiences for their core customers.
Despite the ubiquity of digital and social media, the in-store experience is still integral to producing individualized experiences for high-wealth customers. “Even though the products are available to view online, it is not the same as the experience of seeing them in person,” said a business analyst at a high-end fashion brand in a recent interview. Viewing the product in a store enables you to touch it, learn more about the story about the collections and build a face-to-face relationship with dedicated sales associates. Digital and social media can amplify in-store experience for high-wealth customers, but shouldn’t necessarily be seen as a substitute.
Catering to the wealthiest consumers has always been a constant in the luxury industry, but fashion houses have to keep innovating on their customer experiences to stay ahead of their competitors – both on and off-line. When looking at ways to innovate, fashion houses should think about ways for not only core customers to keep coming back, but to inspire potential customers to become engaged with the dream of their brand.
The challenge for luxury brands is in evoking an aura of desirability across broad audiences, while curating individualized experiences for their core customer base. Luxury brands have to develop strategies that promote both accessibility and exclusivity. Digital and social media can help increase awareness of and perpetuate the myth surrounding the brand, but they must be carefully curated in order to maintain an impression of exclusivity. Furthermore, these channels should be viewed in the context of the store experience.
What do you think are the most innovative examples of fashion in digital and social media? Which luxury brands are creating the most accessible, yet also exclusive experiences?
I’m getting old. When I first started making stuff with technology and the Internet, things like Internet Explorer didn’t exist. In the insane calendar of Moore’s Law, it was an age ago. A little later I worked in places that called themselves ‘web design’ or ‘Internet agencies’. We built web sites, and other exciting stuff for things like ‘Interactive TV’ and ‘mobile’ using WAP 1.1. Driven by new technology, anything seemed possible.
Fast forward to say 2006, suddenly, everyone is talking about Digital. Digital referred, not to one’s and zero’s, but primarily to the Internet in its many fixed and mobile forms, the things living in it and connected to it. It was a term coined to describe new things that certain business didn’t quite understand, and were scared of…
Now fast-forward again a little, but only a year or so: did I hear you say Post Digital? Post digital was coined as a term to describe the fact that the Internet, or vague ‘Internet connected digital thing-a-ma-bobs’, were now so prevalent, normal and accepted in business and society that we are living in a ‘post digital age’ amidst an ‘Internet of connect things’.
Stop. So we went from Digital to Post Digital in a couple of years? I know technology moves fast, but here’s the rub: for many businesses, being digital was and is hard. Embracing technology in and outside of an organisation is not easy. But what if we can adopt the notion of post digital? That sounds easier! It implies we got digital, then moved on! Or rather, back to business as usual.
Sadly, there are more problems with this term. I give you Exhibit A – The Nabaztag. So post-digital is all about digital being so normal right? Well The Nabaztag is a Wi-Fi enabled, Internet connected, talking, white plastic Rabbit. Say that aloud: A Wi-Fi enabled, Internet connected, talking, white plastic Rabbit. A Wi-Fi enabled, Internet connected, talking, white plastic Rabbit IS NOT NORMAL!
Exhibit B – Access to the Internet and technology outside of the developed world. I wont bore you with the stats, Google them. But if you don’t believe me, travel to a country where people have to charge their Nokia via bicycle power, then look at their blank faces as you show them your Nabaztag. I rest my case.
So where are we? Somewhere in the early to mid 90’s the basic technology foundations of the Internet we know today were laid, lets call it Web 1.0. In the mid naughties, everything got standardised and connected into a web of open data, Web 2.0. Today, we approach Web 3.0, an Internet of connected ‘applications’ underpinned by a web of semantic data. Exciting enough on it’s own, but now there’s a difference: Internet access devices and interfaces are finally beginning to meet expectation and deliver on the promises envisaged for them back at the beginning. Technology now works, and it works well. If we can work on equal access then we’ll hit ground zero, the beginning.
Post digital? Bullshit, we’re just barely getting started. Lets do some awesome stuff…
(Nathan Williams) @nathanawilliamsNathan Williams is a Strategist in Wolff Olins London. He likes technology, and delicious cake. Photo courtesy of Lisamarie Babik via Flickr Creative Commons License.
It’s not that often I talk about new websites for corporate holding companies, but I have to admit the new MDC Partners site is great, and for lots of reasons.
MDC have taken their idea - that they are where the best talent lives (which of course I’d have to dispute somewhat) and made a demonstration of it. By demonstrating rather than communicating, they’re showing that they ‘get’ digital and our increasingly mobile, socially connected world. They’re also showing quite viscerally that their business is about the people, and wrapped it all in a package that doesn’t take itself at all seriously.
No easy feat.
In simple terms this is a potentially brilliant move in an increasingly fragmented world where the holding companies often matter to clients.
It’s not perfect, and who knows it’s longevity, but bravo for putting something interesting and different into the world.
By way of comparison, take a look at some of the other Marketing Services holding company sites: Omnicom (which Wolff Olins is a part of) WPP, Interpublic and Publicis.
