A few thoughts on innovation

thanks to Tim from Dynamic Horizons for this thought provoking number.

All I want for Christmas is a Playstation EyePet

Speaking of reality, or lack of it. I’ve been babbling on about augmented reality finding its way to our shores (or NOT finding its way). Well, guess what… IT’S HERE AND IT’S BRILLIANT!

Introducing the Playstation EyePet. I stumbled upon this on YouTube, but I hear from a secret source that this is launching here in only two weeks!!

Tickle him and he laughs, poke him and he jumps, roll him a ball and he chases it. EyePet is a responsive virtual pet that reacts to your every move, providing entertainment and fun for the whole family.

First, you bring your little virtual pet to life – explained to you by a scientist, who also explains how to set up your Playstation Eye camera. Then the PlayStation Eye camera watches your interactions in front of your TV and relays that image onto your screen where the EyePet itself lives. This allows you to then interact with the pet as if it were scampering around the table or floor space in front of you.

This little augmented reality critter reacts to your movement, interacting with you, as if you’d just brought him home from the pet shop (or zoo…)

All of this is made possible by the power of PS3 which has enabled EyePet’s developers to create incredible graphics and animation. Not only is he cute, but he’s smart too.

Go Playstation. And to all you parents out there, start saving, Christmas is only around the corner… Check it out...

The Fun Theory

Even car manufacturers can leverage fun.

The Fun Theory, is the latest campaign by Volkswagen via ad agency DDB Stockholm.
It's not just about proving consumers with fun, but provides them fun in exchange for socially responsible actions. This reward has seen a marked increase in people caring out the action.

Check out the video's of a set of subway stairs transformed into a walking piano and a ‘never-ending’ bin that manage to change people’s typical behaviour for the better.





The latest one is the series has just been uploaded - check is out


And all of this with barely a reference to Volkswagen.

I wonder if there is not some big learning's in this for charities & governments?

Sort of related is a TED video by Rory Sutherland

He talks about how advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. He's point is that changing the perceived value is as powerful as changing the real value.
He is very entertaining & funny (adding some perceived value), but also has some real value in his content. Worth sparing the 10 mins to check it out here: http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html

be natural

Something seems to be in the air in Europe as the French and Germans and Americans are keeping things real for women in magazines.

It may have been a few years since Dove's campaign for Real Beauty but there seems to be some real momentum gathering behind this trend around authenticity.

In France, there are calls by the government to include warnings on any ad, labels or posters where women have been airbrushed. The campaign is being headed up by Valerie Boyer, a conservative parlimentarian who rightly points out how airbrushed images only create a false reality for women to aspire to. We'll be watching like hawks to see how and if this story develops.

In Germany, the most popular womens magazine there, Brigitte is banning models from appearing. They are now opting for 'real women' only to appear in the magazine from 2010. This is such a huge move for a magazine but it is responding to complaints from a proportion of its 700k readers. The magazine is a familiar diet of fitness, lifestyle, recipes and sex (of course), which is apparently read by a slightly more upwardly mobile gal.

The editor in chief, Andreas Lebert of Brigitte says that "Today's models weigh around 23% less than normal women".

This year American title Glamour also published an image of a plus size model without airbrushing her. It even sounds rediculous to have to be so excited about such a break through!

Is this a hint that women will no longer be fed a diet of unachievable images to aspire to? let's wait and see before we pop the champas.

The more than small change session in Melbourne

This time last week we were packing down the signs and breathing a sigh of relief that our second Think Fresh 09 speaker event went off without any major hick ups.

We had three more interesting speakers this time round.

We kicked off with Kate Kendall the online editor for Marketingmag.com.au.
She spoke about Social Media - fad or here to stay?
She shared this video as an opener, which we have had great number of requests for a copy of.

She went on to share some great social media tools and examples of the good (Dell who has earned $3M in revenue from Twitter), the bad & the ugly of brands in the social media space.

One of her key tips was that integration with other media is the key to social media’s success. She also added that brands need to decide for themselves if & how they can use it, do their research (copy & improve), and should look to consumers not the experts to guide them through the social space.

Those interested in chatting more about social media with those in the know, checkout http://twitter.com/socialmelb, on Fridays, 8am @ Mr Tulk, where you can catch Kate Kendal and sometimes us from Melbourne strategy team.

Next up was Toby Dewar, McDonald's National Media & Sponsorship Manager.

He talked us through the transformation of the Macca's business with a very successful ending.
They sent themselves some pretty impressive goal in 2002 for the Australian business;

1. Fix the food
2. Get relevant
3. Become Australia's favourite brand

While number 3 is still a work in process, but there have been improvements in leaps & bounds that have made not only a difference to the bottom line, but has seen them confident in the inheritance they will leave for the future managers of the business.

We finished up with Kate Gunby, OMD Insights Director. Kate presented the findings from our latest research - Future Shapers. The research is a deep dive into the issues organisations are wrestling with to future proof themselves against the constantly changing business environments.

The GFC (no surprise there) was a one the Big Issues business leaders are facing, but accountability, media fragmentation & increased number of communications stakeholders were the longer term concerns.

Another key outtake was in the area of marketing budgets, with most expecting to invest the same YOY, and more looking to increase than decrease.

In terms of channels, more funds are going to be allocated to explore the areas of Online, Mobile and DM at the expensive of Sponsorships and Print.

While this event spells the end of the Think Fresh Festival for 2009, Think Fresh is all about stimulating the conversation, so it is only the beginning....the future really is coming...lets embrace change and be part of it.....it's over to you.

Competing for the Future

I just stumbled across a post by Vijay Govindarajan, who is an academic who blogs on business strategy & innovation.

I thought it was interesting to share in light of a our Think Fresh theme.

He includes a framework for strategic thinking, with focus on competiting for the future instead of competiting for the present.

Worth a look.

Getting Fresh with OMD Clients

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• Last Friday, as part of the Think Fresh, we invited 3 of our clients to talk to OMD about the future of their business and the challenges they’re facing.
  The session was a great and feedback from OMD staff has called for more of it!
  
• We kicked off the panel with Leigh Miles, Category Manager of Spreads at Fonterra. Leigh gave us a very entertaining look at the Dairy Category.
  

Leigh talked to the importance of staying in touch with bigger consumer trends with the example of how butter was the bad guy of spreads in the 90’s but a shift in health trends where consumers want to know what’s in their food has seen a return to butter as the natural alternative to margarine.

• Leigh also discussed the growth of private label brands in our supermarkets as a major challenge for the Fonterra business. He believes that there are two advantages that brands have over private label that need to be leveraged to stop consumers going to the dark side:
  1. The ability to invest in marketing a brand
  2. Putting resource into innovation

Next up, Nikki Clarkson, National Marketing Director at Austereo told us about their future challenges and what they’re doing to future proof the business.

• Austereo is facing challenges not too dissimilar from ours when it comes to how we use technology for communications and remain relevant. With the old adage, Content is King, Nikki’s challenge for the future is how Austereo maintains the distribution of content effectively across any channel in which radio can be heard or viewed.


• To future proof the business Nikki talked about nurturing current talent and always being on the hunt for the next big thing. They have dedicated talent hunters hanging out in comedy clubs, scouring talent shows, attending comedy festivals and listening to tonnes of demo tapes to stay in touch with who could be the next Hamish and Andy.

Finally, Cratis from Open Universities Australia gave us a brilliant overview of how their business has grown in recent years and talked his big challenges:

• Finding more of the right distribution partners such as MyCareer and Seek are key to growing their business
• Cracking the creative challenge around getting the tone right for a busy adult audience and improving the overall customer experience is crucial to their ongoing success

We hope to make the client panel an ongoing program at OMD so look out for more of it in the near future.