Tech projects from advertising agencies have been getting a bit of flack recently, accused of being pointless, superficial, or created solely to win awards. For me, sorting the wheat from the chaff involves asking one or both of the following questions:
1) Does it stand up as a piece of brand communications?
2) Does it stand up as a product in its own right?
OK – when I’m working on a project my first and foremost hope is that I have a brief that identifies a real world problem. It’s not always the case, but on the occasions when I’ve not been hired to polish up the proverbial, my response has been to pass a further test, using social activist and designer William Morris’ edict that you should have “nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”. A modern interpretation of this might be known as the Dragons’ Den/Shark Tank test. Sure, award jurors and the wider industry can be a tough bunch, but they have nothing on those miserable millionaires. I think a show with agencies wheeling out their latest tech products could be compelling car crash viewing.
Let’s start with Morris’ domestic perspective on an appropriately domestic product. OMO recently created their Smart Peg, which sends people text alerts to bring their laundry in when it’s about to rain. Was it successful in terms of reach and positive, relevant brand attribution? Well, a qualified yes – the Peggy story was picked up and spread both locally and internationally, giving the brand huge earned media. But is it useful? Unilever Laundry claimed it was “based on new research that revealed parents want to spend more time playing with their child, rather than everyday chores.” I’d say the jury’s out on this; for me the product and the end game are too tenuously linked. Washing machine? Tick. Dishwasher? Tick. Tech has been solving the problem of domestic chores for generations. But weather-monitoring washing pegs? Surely you’ll just be driven mad by text alerts telling you your washing is getting an extra rinse, while you’re sheltering from the rain at the playground.
There is one category that’s leading the way in creating tech products, which genuinely manifests form and function - sport. When Nike created Nike+ it was a game-changing moment. Beyond being just a great story, it moved Nike from hardware to software, and opened up a wealth of expanding partnerships to increase their brand reach. Beyond the corporate opportunity, it works because it’s beautiful and useful. It tethers even solitary sports to a network of trainers, competitors and companions. It works for everyone from beginner to iron-men, and it opens up the possibility for Nike to act as an ethical ambassador in combating the public health crisis of rising obesity. Nike must have put it to the equivalent of their own Dragons, and the designers would have been fighting off the bids.
More recently, I really liked Puma’s BeatBot. This clever piece of tech was created for people training by themselves, borne from the insight that people run faster when they’re racing against something. So this robot allows you to program a track time - your personal best, or the time of another athlete – and the BeatBot will race against you at this speed. Its function is more prescribed than the Fuel Band, but it does its defined job brilliantly. OK, it does look like a shoebox on wheels but again, here’s a prototype worth developing as it feels like it has real purpose.
I think agencies need to be more honest about whether they’re coming up with a communications campaign or a genuine product to solve a real world problem. If the aim is a comms campaign, let’s give worthy praise when they perform and yes, that can mean awards. But if agencies are trying to come up with a genuine product idea, maybe they should pause to think about what the Dragons’ Den would say.
By Jon Burden
Executive creative director at Naked Communications.