SXSW 2014 Magic - Gravity Thinking

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n the last year technology has moved at an incredible pace and fuelled all sorts of magical developments that offer huge opportunities for brands. This has brought with it a number of challenges none of which are insurmountable. SXSW showed me that the #Magic is out there to embrace and adopt, when coupled with a respectful approach to privacy and social responsibility as exemplified by the likes of Coke the World is truly your oyster.

Transcript of SXSW 2014 Magic - Gravity Thinking

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As this was my 3rd year attending SXSW I was ready for the cacophony of noise that ‘Southby’ throws up and hugely excited by the prospect of having a colleague helping me make sense of the signal through the noise.

Contrary to Michaela’s quest for #SXSWLogic my task was to seek out the magic, the inspirational, the delightful, the exciting developments that will move, change or create new advances over the coming year(s).t

So embracing Steven Johnson’s adage he shared at Southby “embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle; reinvent. Build a tangled bank.” I set off in search of the digital ‘Holy Grail’.

Interestingly, whilst it may be a seemingly impossible task to convey the magic that happens at every event and street corner in Austin,t it was relatively easy to tie it down to 5 areas that provoke debate, drive developments and ultimately all of which have implications for brands.

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TREND #1 FROM APPS TO HARDWARE

SXSW is perhaps best known for the launches of apps from the most famous in Twitter to the equally omniscient Foursquare and 2013’s big launches of GroupMe and Highlight. 2014 was different it was the year of cutting edge

hardware at SXSW, indeed it often felt more CES than SXSW.

From wearable technology to robots and home automation – it seems it is no longer just about vir tual social networks, but from the variety of magical ideas we saw, it seems it is about how new technologies can impact

people’s day-to-day lives. Here are a selection of the best...

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THE INTERNET OF EVERYTHING‘The internet of things’ was a big subject in 2013 (see our blog) – this year is has taken a step to omniscience and evolved to the ‘internet of everything’. This means you will soon be having your fridge tell you are eating too much and your smartphone telling you someone is burgling your house or the kids are having a party.

One of the best examples I saw was Cube Sensors https://cubesensors.com that have powerful sensors that track air quality, temperature, humidity, noise, light, pressure and movement to help you save money on energy, sleep better, breathe easier and the heady promise of keeping your family safe and giving you peace of mind.

In the talk Top Tech Innovation Trends for 2014 Robert Scoble summed up the future tech innovation in the home - “The numbers of sensors on us and around us are going way, way up. It's changing how we communicate with our door locks and everything else. And it's to the point where ordinary people can afford it. It's the first year I felt I could do my own home automation without being a nerd.”

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FROM JEOPARDY TO COOKERY

YOUR OWN PERSONAL DJLightwave, has created a new technology that will allow a DJ to ‘feel’ what you want to hear. Using an iPad and special bracelets that measures movement, body temperature and excitement level the DJ can adjust the music according to the dancers’ mood. The company thinks the technology is transferable to movies, sporting events and political rallies.

If you’ve ever been stumped as to what to cook or order then IBM have the solution – IBM brought Watson, the computing system best known for winning Jeopardy three years ago, to SXSW this year. Watson is able to create meals you couldn’t possibly think up – from Kenyan Brussels sprouts with sweet potato puree, ginger and almonds or Czech pork-belly moussaka with peas, parsley root, cottage cheese and dill. All Watson asked was you put in a region, a main ingredient or two and a type of food and the computer analyses thousands of recipes and matches up chemical flavour compounds that are most likely to surprise people and also taste good. Watch out Heston !

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Lightwave, has created a new technology that will allow a DJ to ‘feel’ what you want to hear. Using an iPad and special bracelets that measures movement, body temperature and excitement level the DJ can adjust the music according to the dancers’ mood. The company thinks the technology is transferable to movies, sporting events and political rallies.

C.U.P.I.D. DON’T DRAW BACK YOUR BOWChaotic Moon Studios are the inventors of the C.U.P.I.D. (Chaotic Unmanned Personal Intercept Drone) that includes an 80,000 volt stun gun and acts as a non-lethal defence mechanism. The demo was like something I have never seen before – I am not sure the ‘volunteer’ agreed !https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fsdb7du1rmM

Small commercial drone usage is a hot topic at present, with Amazon looking to launch a drone delivery service and similar concepts being implemented by big brands the world over so watch this space. Not to be outdone "Game of Thrones" fans used a virtual-reality headset, the Oculus Rift, to immerse themselves in a 3-D version of a scene from the fantasy series.

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3D PRINTING BECOMES A REALITY3-D printers were everywhere you looked – indeed intriguingly Deloitte used SXSW to launch their initiative to “demonstrate, educate, and inspire their clients, as they begin to use emerging design and 3D Printing technologies to bring products and services to market” with the aim to reduce environmental impact of manufacturing and bring jobs back to the U.S.

The promise is that 3-D printers will empower you to make your own products, instead of shopping online or going to the store, personally I especially liked the 3D-printed candy from a machine built in partnership with Hershey.

Other notable developments in hardware included driverless cars, high-tech medical devices for consumers and ‘wall TV’ where your images projected on your walls to replace new paint and wallpaper.

What does this means for brands?Think beyond your app (or website). How can you leverage these new technologies to have a real impact on your consumers’ lives?

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Companies and brands should consider a wider approach to technology than the development of applications and they couldn’t go far wrong when considering how development of hardware could encourage more tactile interaction with a brand and ultimately greater awareness and credibility.

The same principles apply here, utility has always been the standard to follow when developing anything brand related for technology. As Techcrunch reported last year, 85% of apps downloaded are only used once then deleted – in short if it is not useful to consumers they will not engage with it.

So think beyond your app (or website). How can you leverage these new technologies to have a real impact on your consumers’ lives?

WHAT DOES #TREND 1 MEAN FOR BRANDS?

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TREND #2 WEARABLES ARE NOT JUST GOING

TO BE GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Following on from the first trend nowhere did hardware and innovation merge more visibly at this year's SXSW than in Wearables. It seems the human body as an interface is big news and big business, indeed Credit Suisse estimated the market to be worth $50bn by 2017. Judging by the number of people (or Glassholes’ as became the Intsagram tag) walking around Austin in Google's connected eyewear I can believe this to be true. But, as pretentious as the wearers may seem, experts tend to agree that we are only at the beginning of the technology acceptance cycle, and there is much more to come from the potential Google Glass has to offer.

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DIVERSITY OF DEVELOPMENTSThere was a diverse range of speakers addressing the topic, from former basketball player Shaquille O’Neil who advocated his reliance on Fitbit to drive him to complete his 10,000 daily steps to British cardiologist Graham Stuart who spoke of conducting a study to see if NikeFuel can prolong the lives of children living with congenital heart defects.Gadgets on your body, such as fitness trackers -- was a stand-ing-room-only event at SXSW's Startup Accelerator, where new companies pitch their products to investors in the hopes of attracting funding and press.

One startup demoed solar-paneled clothing that can recharge a phone in two hours. This line from Dutch designer Pauline van Dongen has built-in solar cell fins that can get your phone halfway charged after an hour of sun exposure. Her designs look like something Lady Gaga would wear — the only downside is you have to go outside.

Netherlander Borre Akkersdijk walked around SXSW wearing the prototype for his BB.Suit, a quilted jumpsuit knit with copper threads to connect internet, GPS, and a music-sharing program. It looks like a rag & bone sweatshirt and doubles as a Wi-Fi hot spot for smartphones in the vicinity — a conversation piece that ends an IRL conversation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUipW2u5HRY

Another pitched Nymi, a wristband that authenticates users through their unique cardiac rhythm and eliminates the need to type passwords on a mobile device.

http://www.getnymi.com

We also saw the Spree Headband, which aims to monitor your speed, distance, time, heart rate, calories burned, and body temperature.

Athos fitness apparel aims to provides a more complete picture of fitness by tracking exactly what your muscles are doing, as well as your form, and the activity of your respiratory and cardiovas-cular systems.

The JUNE bracelet by Netatmo aims to measure a wearer's sun exposure and advises on how to protect skin from the sun's effects.

But the big winner was Skully, an augmented-reality motorcycle helmet. The helmet has a 180-degree rear-view camera that projects images to a headset display so the driver can see the road in every direction. The company's CEO, Marcus Weller, describes his product as "like Google Glass, except it can save your life."

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NOT JUST WEARABLE BUT ‘IMPLANTABLE’Despite the fact that smart band sales are expected to increase from 8 million to 45 million over the next three years, some analysts have been weary about the lack of true innovation in the sector. That’s where ‘implantables’ come in.

The ‘heart attack ringtone’, for example, is an implanted device mentioned at SXSWi that senses internal changes that are a precursor to a heart attack and rings ahead to warn you. Additionally, the development of contact lenses that constantly track insulin levels in diabetes patients show the possibilities of how tech can make giant leaps when it comes to our wellbeing. This was summed up by one of the most commonly tweeted paraphrases from a Byron Reese talk; ‘live another 25 years and there’s a high probability that you may never die’.

THE FUTURE IS HERE….NOWAs fascinating glimpse into the future was provided by Leo Burnett and Contagious – who gave us a glimpse into the future where technology developments such as ‘affective interfaces’, ‘cognitive computing’, ‘epidermal electronics’ and ‘haptic experiences’ mean the future is here now – but one word of caution from Paul at Contagious “Good tech is no excuse for a bad idea”.

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THE POWER OF GENESIn a packed keynote session “The Future of Genetics in Everyday Life”, Anne Wojcicki, the CEO and Co-Founder of 23andMe, echoed these themes in her keynote address on pointing out that understanding individual genetics can transform medicine from a treatment model to a prevention one. Interestingly her company has recently been issued with a ‘cease and desist’ order from the FDA she acknowledged that 23andMe does not offer interpreted health results to customers, but she was at pains to show the potential that this information has for people and for research. However with more than half a million people participating in research, the company has been able to do more studies in a few months or years that would have a taken others using traditional methods several decades.

As mentioned Google Glass explorers abounded at SXSW, wearing the full spectrum of colors that the tiny computing headset comes in. At the conference, attendees pondered the privacy questions that naturally come about — when wearable cameras snap at any moment, whose freedom should be protected? The wearer or the people in the crowd? The cultural issues cropped up at numerous panels, too. Do wearables make us more connected, or detach us further? The coming onslaught of watches, Google Glass getting more mainstream and even contact lenses that are in develop-ment mean the larger conversations about this topic will continue.

Finally, Stuart did warn of a darker bi-product of incentivised wellness and the data it creates, claiming that in the future it could affect our insurance premiums and ability to get a job.

A WORD OF WARNING

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WHAT DOES#TREND 2MEAN FORBRANDS?The next great media tech wave is already here, and it fits like a glove, a watch, eyeglasses, a bracelet, a pendant or maybe a hat or a plaster.Wearable technology promises a seamless interface of body and machine and an opportunity to serve consumers in unprece-dented, and unprecedentedly intimate, ways. Whether directly related to health or more visceral pastimes Brands should consider how they can use this trend to their advantage.

The key for brand is figuring out how brand messaging and content marketing can integrate themselves off of the desktop and into more-progressive communication technology.

Most wearables do not operate independently, but work in tandem with a mobile device and as such the proximity sensors and communication capabilities built into fitness trackers and smartwatches could one day be used to change the look of an advertising billboard as you approach it, or to adjust the targeted adverts you see based on your recent activity.

We don’t know just how many devices we’ll have attached to our bodies in the coming years, what’s certain is that the companies who want to stay relevant will have to continue to evolve and innovate just as quickly as the technology does.

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TREND #3 THE DARK SIDE OF THE NET

As part of their review of SXSW 2014 the Meltwater team analyzed the buzz around South by South-West (SXSW) and put together their findings in this infographic.

This showed clearly that online security and privacy were major themes at Southby this year with National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden topping all subjects during the interactive festival, with over 170,100 mentions – this huge achievement is contextualized by the fact that he even beat SXSW 2013’s hero Grumpy Cat into second place. Indeed 7 percent of all social buzz was Snowden-related: that's 3 times more mentions than parties, 5 times more than food and 9 times more mentions than drinking.

The irony was that along with one of the other big conversation starters of the Festival Julian Assange, Snowden clearly wasn’t able to attend in person but rather contradictorily appeared using Google Hangouts from Russia. This was despite a ‘strongly worded physical letter from Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo urging the SXSW committee to try and stop the virtual conversation with Edward Snowden – a joke that wasn’t lost on the techie crowd.

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POST PRIVACY WORLDBoth Assange and Snowden warned of continuing government surveillance and threats to privacy and called for the public to be more conscious of the information shared online. But they didn’t stop at government, noting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent invocation of a “post privacy world,” Assange reminded the audience that Silicon Valley revenue models encourage companies like Facebook and Google to “steal” user data. Snowden called on the developer community to build better encryption tools to protect users but acknowledged that massive data collection by tech companies would continue.

These weren’t the only sessions about privacy - on Saturday and Sunday alone in Austin, there were sessions called: “Do Consumers Really Care About Online Privacy?;” “In Data We Distrust: Fixing Online Privacy;” “Privacy is Dead: Long Live Privacy;” “Online Privacy: Nuclear Meltdown or NextGen Fuel?;” and, finally, “Privacy Swaps: Better Brand Experiences at a Price.” These ssions explored a number of other themes including:

DIGITAL PERMANENCY As younger users embrace new tools and platforms like Snapchat that promise not to permanently save and display their data. Indeed, a new study found the photo sharing and deleting service is more popular among teens and younger adults than Twitter. This was referenced especially as the next generation to run the countries of the World will be The Millennials and I am sure they don’t want their college indiscretions shared in 10 years time!

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GOING ‘DARK’A more extreme but much smaller group of users has discovered the “DarkNet,” where people can obscure their real identities and mask their online movements and transactions (Huge’s Director of Search and Inbound Marketing Andrew Delamarter presented a talk on the DarkNet at SXSW). While they are becoming easier to access and use, DarkNet tools and tactics still require a fairly high level of technical sophistication, making their users more like traditional hackers than tweens trying to hide their sexting from their parents.

In addition Tor, the free software that prevents people from learning your location or browsing habits, was lauded, as was an app called Secret launched a month ago. Secret is like Facebook without the faces letting people share their deepest, darkest thoughts with the those they know, without their names attached to posts.

SEMANTIC PEDANTIC The debate brought back the much vaunted Google adage that you would rather get what you want from your searches and give your privacy away than the opposite. It seems that digital users say one thing but do another, as one presenter pointed out whilst “66% of Americans say they do not want to receive targeted ads, 53% of them want websites they visit to offer discounts tailored to their interests.” The overriding conclusion seemed to be that people don’t tend to care about privacy until there is a breach – something debated heatedly at the “Is Privacy a Right or an Illusion?”

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“You are what you do, not what you say you'll do.”The words of Carl Jung ring just as true for brands now as they did for Psychology in the early 20th century. Whilst not necessarily #SXSWMagic all the magic that is created by a brand can be destroyed by overlooking the very contentious issue of privacy.If your brand is what it does, then you need to ensure that your approach to the privacy of people who interact with you conveys the right messages. Whilst some argue that privacy has become the new “green” or “eco,” meaning businesses can charge higher costs for a more secure experience. The stronger argument seems to be that in exchange for the benefit of storing, using and selling user data, brands have to offer even more premium experiences, whether via personalisation, deals and discounts or otherwise.

Most agreed that as mainstream awareness of privacy anddata security increases, users will demand more disclosure and transparency – for brands, this means taking responsibility for how they use the data they are collecting and always thinking about the value exchange they can provide, indeed one audience member at one panel asked why terms and conditions can’t be displayed in clear infographic form!

So maybe not magic but certainly a consideration that goes a long way to creating magic!

WHAT DOES#TREND 3MEAN FORBRANDS?

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TREND #4 DIGITAL FOR GOOD

One of the most buzzed about topics at SXSW was Social Good, after a number of panels and the ‘Social for Good’ hub http://sxsw.com/sxsw-social-good-hub were added this year focusing on

Global impact and policy after 2013 attendees voiced in their feedback they’d like to see this addition in the 2014 lineup. From what I can see it’s clear this is the direction the digital world is taking.

TREND #4 DIGITAL FOR GOOD

One of the most buzzed about topics at SXSW was Social Good, after a number of panels and the ‘Social for Good’ hub were added this year focusing on Global impact and policy after 2013

attendees voiced in their feedback they’d like to see this addition in the 2014 lineup. From what I can see it’s clear this is the direction the digital world is taking.

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SOCIAL BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

TECHNOLOGY FOR GOODChelsea Clinton’s keynoted on utilising data and technology to drive the developing world looked what technology needs to do to aid human developing. She referenced a lot of the work that The Clinton Foundation (of which she is Vice Chair) is doing and challenged the tech community to improve the use of technology for doing good and highlighted some of her favourites including Kiva, which gives direct loans to low-income entrepreneurs, and M-Pesa, a mobile banking startup based in Africa.

She called for ways to look at existing technologies, compare them, and create metrics to decide which work best. “Innovation isn’t always new, almost every challenge has been solved by someone somewhere,”. Now she sees the problem in solution aggregation. So her call was for an agnostic solutions hub, one hopefully developed by someone in the room listening to her.

The overall feeling was that consumers and producers alike are at a crossroads in understanding and enhancing social responsi-bility through online channels.

Change.org founder Ben Rattray’s gave an empassioned call to action that it is not just individuals who should be in the game of enacting change but companies too “The best way to address social change is through business,” Rattray stated. Rattray believes there’s a lot to be gained by being a proponent of social change, especially those in the technology industry with the opportuni-ty to not only leave a lasting legacy but also create a better economy, too and called for a renewed focus on social change.

“The soapbox is now a network,” business is now infinitely more transparent and social media has provided a space that has allowed the public to have a louder, more meaningful voice. Sites like change.org have proven the undeniable impact of empow-ered consumers.

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BRANDS DOING GOODDean Kamen’s total focus is on the humanitarian uses of technology, which stretches back to his invention of the portable dialysis machine and an infusion pump to deliver drug therapies to infants.

He talked about a number of initiatives including most interestingly Slingshot a water vapour distillation system a low-energy machine that could purify 1000 liters of water a day in the poorest communities. The units can be powered by a Stirling engine; one ran for six months with cow dung as fuel. A successful program in Ghana situated the units next to five schools, and purified 140,000 litres.

The challenge was how to get to these remote locations and the answer was found in the strangest of places – Coca Cola’s distribution system was the only one that goes deep enough into remote, poverty stricken corners of the world that need portable water helping bring clean, drinking water to places like Ghana and Paraguay. No other company or medical related organization could accomplish that – interestingly they also found that the western brand icon delivered the trust necessary for the project to be a success.

As Kaplan pointed out "Big entrenched organizations often don't want change. The cold, hard fact is that billions of poor people around the World don’t have the capability and resources to create change”.Brands have the capability and resources to create solutions to the world's problems and can create that change.

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VIDEO ADVERTISING THAT GIVES BACK"When it comes to trying to create change, don’t just think outside of the box, think like there is NO box.” – Jean Case, CEO of the Case Foundation.

During her interview with Ahmed Shihab-Eldin from Huffington Post Live on fearless social change, Jean engaged the audience through inspiring stories and challenged them to take risks, be bold and fail forward. One of the best examples of this came from The Australian Federal Police who met the challenge presented by over 1,600 missing person cold cases in Australia they found a cost effective way to search for new leads.

Using a geo targeted Missing Persons Pre-roll http://vimeo.com/73364704 they turned the unavoidable 5 seconds of a YouTube pre-roll into an engaging, geo-tar-geted missing person banner. To focus the viewers attention the “Skip” button was modified to show 2 options “Yes, I have” seen the missing person, or “No I haven’t.”. If the user clicked “No, I haven’t” the pre-roll would skip to the video as usual.

A YouTube and world first, the Missing Persons Pre-roll was seen by over 1.2 million people during Missing Persons Week and 238 viewers clicked “Yes, I have” providing new information on cold cases.

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WHAT DOES #TREND 4 MEAN FOR BRANDSIt was clear that alongside all the new technologies launching and gaining traction throughout the event, a social model is emerging concurrently; one that calls for social accountability and the desire to make real-world changes through technology.

Brands such as TOMS, who to date has donated more than 10 million pairs of children’s shoes and eyewear to 200,000 people, used the festival to announce that an initaitve where the purchase of TOMS coffee products in turn donates money to help clean water projects around the world. The TOMS model was a great example of a pervasive theme of SXSW +SocialGood: Doing social good is also good business.

“We are in a place in human history where this notion of public versus private and all these oppositional things are starting to blur at the edges. Some of these issues go way behind one sector to solve, so we find it very exciting to partner with organizations to solve some of these problems.” Manoj Fenelon Director of Foresight Pepsico.

Brands can do a lot worse than embrace and consider how initiatives such as these can be embedded into their strategies and plans.

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TREND #5 EMBRACE MAKER VALUES

People who might once have been defined as hobbyists and cottage craftsmen are now a sophisticated network of technology tinkerers with limitless potential coming from different walks of life. The maker revolution has had a presence at SXSW for a while now, however new this year was evidence of its impact on digital marketers, who have enthusiastically adopted maker values: celebrating DIY culture, rapidly prototyping and opting for tangible “products” over fluff.This means redefining traditional manufacturing cycles and riding on the wave of increasingly accessible and powerful tools for rapid prototyping. In other words, moving from traditional, top-down campaigns to collaborative, bottoms-up engagement with customers.

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‘COMBINATIONAL CREATIVITY’ “The Future of Innovation” was a key buzzword of the 2014 program embracing the idea that some of the most transformative new ideas and products are being created in both the skunkwork labs of tech giants and by digital artists, hackers, and other collec-tives; and in some instances the two sides are joining forces.

Increasingly companies are recruiting and assembling teams from a variety of backgrounds as well as the increasing trend in engaging individuals from a non-tech background for development and design roles.

Kicked off in a rousing keynote from artist and entrepreneur Austin Kleon who invited attendees to embrace their inner ‘cenius’ (collaborative genius) and look to combine and share their work with others, presentations from Microsoft, Philips, IDEO and Intel all stressed the importance of looking beyond job title and qualifica-tion to harness creativity and build shared innovation.

Philips in particular were one of the few brands featured in the trade show with a large stand showcasing their Digital Innovation Challenge not only asking for attendees feedback on their lifestyle products via post it notes and brainstorming sessions but also offering the start-up that impressed them the most the chance to spend a week at Philips’ Headquarters in the Netherlands, including access to expertise and resources.

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Capital One, for example, focuses on relevant events that the bank sponsors, like March Madness, and “gifts” users rapidly created GIFs celebrating their favourite team (discovered from using social listening cues). During its summer campaign, the bank teamed with artists on Tumblr to create customized illustrations of “bucket list” summer vacation destinations identified by followers.

Boing Boing and Ford teamed up, for example, on a hackathon where outside makers were invited to play with Ford’s OpenXC platform and presented the results to conference-goers.

And Oreo, moving well beyond its Super Bowl tweet, is experimenting with 3D-printed cookies, which can be customized and evaluated by consumers in real time through social media.

Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab, noted in his keynote on “The Future of Making” that the model for product design has shifted to one in which, even for complex devices like smartphones, designers build prototypes that are tested within days and then iterated based on user feedback. Lengthy planning and research is out, making and testing is in, a lesson not lost on the social media marketers for major brands, who are being more experimental and adjusting based on real-time feedback from customers.

FAST, EXPERIMENTAL AND ITERATIVE

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Beyond influencing social and engagement strategies, the maker ethos is pushing marketers and brand innovators to collaborate with customers themselves in improving existing products and creating new ones.

Experimenting with rapid prototyping tools such as 3D printers and programmable electronic components (such as Arduino) should be part of every brand / agency’s toolkit to help creatives and clients lean into the future..Even the biggest of corporations are starting to get involved and embrace the DIY spirit with programs that empower makers and earn goodwill in the process. Consider Levi’s, which produces a video series showcasing unique designers, or GE, which created shared workspaces and makers competitions in partnership with the online makers network, Quirky.

The Millennial generation’s adoption of the making philosophy, where there is inherent expectation of ownership and personalisation of any brand, will increas-ingly impact how brand approach their marketing efforts. As such continually evolving products, brand on crowds making efforts will be the new standard as making becomes the new marketing!

WHAT DOES #TREND 5 MEAN FOR BRANDS?

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SUMMARY

SXSW this year left me feeling like we are at a crossroads of change and constancy. The leaps in technological advancement that offer us the chance to directly impact people’s lives and liberation of the maker movement are challenged by increasing calls for privacy and societal responsibility. However, rather then being restrictive this is a hugely inspiring time that presents a plethora of opportunities for brands. Of course technology has its challenges, but it brings with it unbelievable prospects. This means that we have the ability to play a serious role in defining and shaping the next phase of blending content and technology to connect people and brands.

Brands need to decide what role they are going to play – are they entertainers, publishers, service providers or should they act as the consumers’ broader social conscience? This presents both an opportunity and a threat – it is easy to focus on creating content that engages with consumers but does little to promote or fur ther a brands identity. Howeve,r brands such as Nike do a great job at create compelling brand experiences whilst still building equity and driving sales. The key to the future seems to be how do you create the magic to add value and engage whilst still driving the bottom line.