CURIOSITY STOP: INNOVATE OR DIE

Post event wrap-up: February 2016

INNOVATE… OR DIE?In the fast-paced world of marketing, standing still is the same as going backwards. Innovation

is a necessity, not a choice.

On 9th February 2016, in partnership with SpredFast, we held Curiosity Stop: Innovate or Die at our London HQ. We gave the audience practical advice on how to innovate, and guest

speakers from BBC Match of the Day, London College of Fashion and Shazam, along with some of We Are Social’s team, spoke about their perspective on innovation.

If you missed the event, fear not. Here are a few of the evening’s highlights.

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Brand case study: Shazam

Speaker: Sam Woods, Vice President - UK & Head of Strategic Partnerships, Shazam

ShazamUsing data to enhance the user experience.

Beacons make any environment interactiveShazam is where the world discovers music. It’s evolved into a presence in almost every environment since launch. In the future, Shazam will be positioning itself in this always-on world as a tool connecting you first hand to the brands you want to connect to. Concerts, retail locations, tradeshow booths, bus shelters - practically anything will become Shazamable.

Shazam uses data to discover new artists early Shazam classifies trending artists in three categories - watch, trending and hot. It’s often ahead of Radio and Sales when it comes to identifying new artists - Fetty Wap was first Shazamed in June 2014, six months before opening a Facebook profile. It first detected Galantis’ potential 17 months before his peak within Shazam, and 20 months before his peak in the Billboard Dance chart.

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“We were sat on a sleeping giant - our data. I can tell you what's going the number one six

weeks ahead of time in most economically developed countries... Easily.”

Sam Woods @Sam_From_Shazam@Shazam

#CuriosityStopLive

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Social Innovations: Curiosity Stop Live

Speaker: Charlotte Miller, Writer, We Are Social

Social Thinking Innovations

‘Social Thinking’ is understanding how and why people communicate. We use this insight to provide value for our clients. This understanding is an ongoing passion-project at We Are Social.

Our team keeps a keen eye out for intriguing changes in the social landscape. We take the best of these innovations and compile them in our monthly Curiosity Stop Reports.

The report’s author, Charlotte Miller, gave event attendees a sneak preview into some of the upcoming social innovations featured in the next edition of the Curiosity Stop Report.

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Social Thinking Innovations

Mobile Lorm GloveLorm is a tactile alphabet spelled out with strokes to the hand. It’s used by deaf-blind people as a way to communicate with others, but obviously it can’t be used unless you’re actually with the other person. Now, a researcher in Berlin has designed a glove with fabric pressure-sensors, so online messages can be translated directly onto the glove, and then the glove-wearer can reply. The amazing thing about the Mobile Lorm Glove is that it gives deaf-blind people a whole new community to engage with.

BabypodBabypod's research found that when you play music (in the regular way) to a fetus, it doesn't physically react because the sound is muffled by the abdominal walls. But if you play it through Babypod’s vagina speakers, babies DO react to the music. The best (or worst) bit is that on the other end of these speakers is a pair of headphones, so you can listen along too, enabling a social experience with your baby before you even meet he or she face-to-face.

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“Social innovation needn't break your budget. Sometimes the simpler, the better."

Charlotte Miller @LotMill@WeAreSocial

#CuriosityStopLive

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Brand case study: BBC Match of the Day

Speaker: Chris Hurst, Digital Development Editor, BBC Sport

BBC Match of the Day How embracing social media can positively impact even the most long-standing, traditional media formats.

Taking risks on social can pay off Match of the Day used social media to reflect the nation’s conversation about the importance of the MOTD running order. Which teams will appear first and last on the show is a topic of heated debate, but instead of staying away from this, MOTD embraced it. It was the first Facebook brand page out of the US to get access to Facebook Live, where Gary Lineker revealed the show's running order ahead of time, with deeper insight on why one team had been chosen over another. It was such a huge success - 1.3 million views - that MOTD now runs this on a weekly basis.

1. Take calculated risks.2. Make the most of your distinctive content.

3. Keep innovating, or you’ll be left behind.

Chris Hurst @ChrisHurst@BBCSport

#CuriosityStopLive

@PunkpostCo is here to make handwHacking it: Creating Sing Chat

Speakers: Matthew Payne, Head of Creative Technology & Tom Ollerton, Innovation Director, We Are Social

Hacking ItDon’t be afraid to experiment - even short-term failure can lead to long-term benefit.

Hacks in Practice: Creating Sing Chat Last year, Facebook Messenger opened up its API to developers, allowing non-Facebook companies to integrate their mobile apps with Facebook Messenger itself. So We Are Social decided to dedicate a hack day to experimenting with this new function. The agency asked its 11 offices what kind of app could it create, and the best response was this: “Have conversations in messenger using only lyrics from songs. You type in any word and several lyric suggestions will pop up”. So it created Singchat, which allowed you to do just that.

Why hack? Hack Days allow agencies to continually evolve, ask questions, learn and explore. Sometimes, they allow them to fail fast, so that when they’re presented with a similar problem for a client, they know their way to a better, more efficient solution (and what to avoid doing). And of course, they’re a lot of fun - fast prototyping and guerilla testing isn't something people get to do every day in agency life!

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“Innovation is a necessity, not a choice. Just look at Blockbuster and Kodak.”

Tom Ollerton @MrTomOllerton@WeAreSocial

#CuriosityStopLive

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Brand case study: London College of Fashion

Speaker: Matthew Drinkwater, Head of Fashion Innovation Agency

London College of Fashion How technology is changing the way designers show and sell collections.

Fyodor Golan x NokiaNokia approached the London College of Fashion’s Fashion Innovation Agency last year to “do something disruptive at London Fashion Week”. FIA teamed Nokia with designers Fyodor Golan, who designed a super smart skirt, combining 80 Nokia Lumia 1520 mobile phones. The skirt was created by tech studio Kin and it used static pictures captured by the phone, as well as live feeds - allowing it to change around the wearer and their day.

Richard Nicoll x DisneyDisney’s collaboration with Richard Nicoll saw his catwalk show inspired by Tinkerbell. The collection used pastel colours with metallics and louche, washed fabrics. Star of the show was a standout technology dress, made in collaboration with London Fashion Laboratory Studio XO. Made from fibre optic fabric, activated by high intensity LEDs tailored within the dress, it created a magical digital pixie dust effect down the catwalk.

“One in three people think wearable tech makes you look ridiculous. How can the fashion industry

bridge this gap? We need to focus on collaboration and co-creation.”

Matthew Drinkwater @DrinkMatt@LCFLondon

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To find out more about We Are Social’s forthcoming events, visit our Eventbrite page.

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