Jawbone is one of the biggest names in wearables and is forging ahead with some of its innovations and the way it uses consumer behaviour data to track trends, allow people to measure their health and take control of their own data. Brian Wilt, Jawbone's chief data scientist is in Australia for the ADMA Forum and AdNews caught up with him ahead of the conference to talk good data, the next big thing in wearables and how brands can connect with the ecosystem and use data to improve people’s lifestyle.
In wearables – health is the biggest growing area – what is the next potential growth area?
Jawbone is a world-leader in consumer technology and wearable products. We design products that help improve people’s lives – to live better, healthier, and happier.
We love to design products for the way you live. All Jawbone products are designed to help make your daily experiences even better. We believe how a product fits into your life is as important as the technology, and that design is about thoughtfully considering the intersection of form and function to create a beautifully crafted experience - and it’s a combination of hardware + software + data.
We are creating products that work together to create a rich, personalised experience. With our lifestyle tracker UP24 at the heart of the experience, we are creating ‘the Internet of You’. We see the “Internet of You” as putting you at the centre of a network of smart devices and connected technology, and how that technology can provide rich, personalised experiences that benefit you.
People are excited about the Internet of Things because of the potential for any and all of your devices to “talk.” There was a revolution around computers being able to connect to the internet, followed by phones. Next is “everything else”.
What is good data?
Data in its rawest form is just a mess and that’s the truth. Good data is: cleaned, structured and has a story to tell. And then there’s time involved to go from mess to insights.
At Jawbone, we’ve have this saying: “Data is good, but understanding is better.”
UPCoffee is an interesting data add-on that Jawbone offers to help users measure the impact of the coffee they drink – what other utilities or specific uses can you pull out of the Jawbone data?
What we’ve been focusing on is how to use data from the UP system to drive understanding, and eventually drive people to act (behaviour change). We’re the only ones doing this – it’s what sets us foundationally apart from others in the space.
At the end of the day, what people care about is “how does this all affect my life?” Our job is to help people make sense of the data – to help them understand it and understand what to go do with it.
So we’re driving engagement through the UP app, and engagement is a key building block for behaviour change. We are learning a tremendous amount about human behaviour. Things that were never able to be seen before. We can also use this understanding to create nudges in the system to help users. Here’s an example that we released earlier in the year: People who sleep with partners get 35 minutes more sleep. Turns out that was a massively important health question many couples are asked every day. But was never thought of in that way.
We are the only ones delivering Jawbone Insights and real behaviour change with ‘Today I Wills’. People who accepted a “Today I Will” challenge to go to bed on time got on average 23 minutes extra sleep.
So our community is learning a ton about themselves, and using that to prioritize what’s important to them. At the same time we’re learning a ton from the data, and constantly using that data to build upon and improve the system.
Data in marketing is talked about all the time – what brands do you think actually use it well and are marketers really understanding its potential?
Given that I work in the Silicon Valley, I’m fascinated by software marketing platforms. For example, how Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks allow businesses, from the largest Fortune 500 company to the smallest mum-and-dad shop, to connect with and understand people.
Advertising is one of data’s biggest success stories, with Google Adwords, Amazon product suggestions, remarketing. So yes, I think that marketers get data and its potential, if anyone does!
What can brands do with the kind of data/quantified self technology that Jawbone offers?
We are building a connected eco-system around the UP platform. We have hundreds of partner apps from around the world on our platform – and we showcase some of the best in the UP System. It used to be just health and fitness – now we can connect you to your pet (Whistle), your car (Automatic), your house (SmartThings) and many more. In Russia, one of their banks Alfa-Bank has made an app that puts you on a higher interest rate for savings if you take more steps - Healthy living and Health finances. people are actively connecting UP with other products and services they love to enhance the experience. We’re quickly becoming one of the best places to see all of the apps and data in context, because we give you a complete picture of your day.
'The internet of things' gets thrown around a lot as a term – but how far away is it – and is it really a reality that has value to people and brands?
The explosion of our partner platform is key as we continue to make the ‘Internet of You’ a reality. We have a stronger 3rd party ecosystem than anyone else out there on the market. So you can see when you drive or walk the dog and how it affects your movement. Or how the act of going to sleep or getting up in the morning can affect the physical environment around you. We are making all of this possible.
The Internet of You is the rest of your stuff catching up to the ease of use of your phone - but it’s becoming a reality.
Brian Wilt is spekaing at ADMA Forum today (29 July)
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