Category: Event

CES 2017 Day 2: L’Oreal Debuts Smart Hairbrush, Plus More In Beauty Tech

Posted on by Richard Yao

Welcome to the Lab’s coverage of the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest annual tech trade show that sets the consumer tech trends for the coming year. As with previous years, the Lab has a team on the ground in Las Vegas scouting the show floors to bring you the most noteworthy discoveries and announcements that marketers need to know.

What We Saw At CES
As we noted when Apple first started working with fashion brands on the Apple Watch, tech and fashion are two industries that are starting to realize the great benefits to be obtained by working together and converging some of the products. This year at CES, we are glad to see this trend continue to develop and crossover into beauty.

On Wednesday, L’Oreal surprised the crowd with a connected hairbrush dubbed Hair Coach. The beauty conglomerate worked with wearable brand Withings to create this sensor-laden brush that can sync up with your phone. With each brush, it will collect data and analyze your hair types and brushing patterns to recommend the right haircare products and grooming techniques.

Besides L’Oreal, two more beauty-related products caught our eyes so far at CES. Bioreline is an organic cosmetic company based in France, and they come to Vegas this year with VisioDerm, a thermometer-shaped gadget designed to quickly and expertly detects skin imbalances so as to assist beauty consultations and product recommendation.

Then there is HiMirror Plus, a smart mirror that promises to scan your face and generate an honest report of your facial skin conditions, detailing possible issues such as wrinkles, red spots, and pores so that users can know what to focus on in their beauty regime. 

In addition, Samsung breaks away from making smartphones and VR headsets to introduce an experimental beauty product called S-Skin, a handheld gadget that scans and evaluates your skin conditions through a combination of cameras, light sensors, and conductivity sensors.

What This Means For Beauty Brands
Increasingly we are seeing beauty brands incorporating digital technologies into their products and services. On the mobile AR front, L’Oreal’s Makeup Genius app and the BeautyU app from Covergirl are good examples of how beauty brands can leverage the advanced capabilities of smartphones to provide extra utility throughout the consumer journey. In addition, the Hair Coach from L’Oreal demonstrates the value of hyper-personal data to the beauty industry. By gathering data on individual user’s beauty regimen and interests, brands can generate insights on their personal preferences and better understand their customers.  

The Lab has extensive experience working with beauty clients to create and implement digitally enhanced retail experiences. The recently-opened NYX Cosmetics store at Union Square is a proud showcase of our team’s work in this space and elevated NYX as one of the most innovative digital beauty brands of 2016 named by WWD. If you’d like to learn more about how your brand can develop and implement digital-driven solutions to modernize your beauty retail experience, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

CES 2017 Day 1: NVIDIA Applies AI Computing To Gaming, Smart Home, And Self-Driving Cars

Posted on by Richard Yao

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang took the stage at the 50th CES to deliver an opening keynote address that showcased the remarkable advances NVIDIA has made in visual and AI computing, as well as how the chip-making company aims to apply them to a wide range of domains, including gaming, connected TV, smart home, and self-driving cars. Here are the three most important products Huang introduced during his keynote:

GeForce Now for On-Demand Gaming
Competitive gaming has grown into a huge global media phenomenon that attracts huge numbers of viewers worldwide. In fact, Huang called it “the biggest sports event in the world,” citing that there are now 100 million MOBA game players and over 325 million eSports spectators.

With that much consumer attention to capitalize on, NVIDIA is opening up its video game streaming service GeForce Now, previously only available via its own Shield gaming console, and bringing it to PC and Mac to reach more potential players. Using NVIDIA cloud computing powers, PC and Mac devices will be able to run the type of graphically intensive video games it can’t handle locally. The service is set to launch in March and will be priced in a tiered, on-demand manner starting at $25 for 20 hours of play.

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For brands, this expansion of GeForce reinforces the growing prominence of the gaming and eSports industry. In the past few years, the competitive gaming industry has quickly grown into a media opportunity that brands should not ignore. Some early-adopting brands, such as Coca-Cola and Snickers, have been sponsoring eSports events to reach its young, male-skewing audience. As media companies race to capture the vast eSports audience, brands, especially those seeking global recognition, should consider leveraging the massive reach of eSports events via sponsorships and ads.

NVIDIA Spot for A Google Assistant-Powered Smart Home
One of the most evident trends we have identified at this year’s CES is how quickly voice assistants led by Amazon’s Alexa have taken over the smart home space as the de-facto interface that facilitates users interactions on those IoT home devices. Now NVIDIA is adding to this trend by introducing Spot, a small connected mic that you can attach to the wall and bring Google Assistant into every corner of your home. NVIDIA Spot, which is set to launch later this year, connects to its new Shield console over Wi-Fi and transfer the voice command back to it for processing. With a few of them strategically placed throughout the house, summoning Google Assistant at home would become a truly ambient experience that seemingly operates without the confines of a hardware device, akin to the way Ironman talks to his digital butler Jarvis in the movies.

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With voice-activated assistants quickly conquering the home space and bringing AI-powered voice-activation to mainstream consumers. This means it is time for brands to start exploring how incorporating conversational interfaces may help improve the customer experience, for they offer a way in for those brands to reach consumers at home and connect with them in a more intimate, relaxed context. Therefore, brand marketers, especially those in the CPG, food, and lifestyle categories, need to pay close attention to the developments in the smart home space and start exploring possible partnerships.

Xavier and AI Co-Pilot Show NVIDIA’s Self-Driving Ambitions
At the beginning of his keynote, Huang noted that “GPU-powered deep learning is driving the ability for computers to perceive the world.” Later he added that “AI is the solution to the self-driving cars” when introducing Xavier, NVIDIA’s AI computer for self-driving cars. In addition to this powerful compact processing unit that will power its autonomous car being developed in partnership with Audi, NVIDIA also demoed an interesting “AI Co-pilot” mode, which uses computer vision, machine learning, and natural language processing to turn the self-driving AI software into an all-seeing, all-sensing co-pilot that can alert the drivers of the road conditions they may have missed or not in eyesight via spoken suggestions.

screen-shot-2017-01-04-at-10-24-46-pmThis wave of self-driving innovation is set to bring a seismic change to the auto and transportation industries. And that shakeup is coming at a quicker pace with each announcement like the ones NVIDIA just made. For auto brands, it represents great challenges to adapt to, but also enormous opportunities to redefine the future of driving. For every other brand, the eventual arrival of self-driving cars will free up a significant amount of time spent on driving and transform cars into the next battleground for consumer attention, something that brand marketers need to keep an eye out for.

CES 2017 Day 1: What’s New In VR & AR

Posted on by Richard Yao

Welcome to the Lab’s coverage of the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest annual tech trade show that sets the consumer tech trends for the coming year. As with previous years, the Lab has a team on the ground in Las Vegas scouting the show floors to bring you the most noteworthy discoveries and announcements that marketers need to know.

What We Saw At CES
Though the exhibition floors won’t officially open until tomorrow, there have already been a number of high-profile announcements coming out in the Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality arena.

On the headset front, Lenovo unveiled its first VR headset, a light prototype device that works with Microsoft’s Windows Holographic platform, whereas ODG debuted two sleek AR glasses powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 835 chip. HTC didn’t update its Vive VR headset, but it did introduce a series of add-ons to enhance its flagship headset, including an add-on that can power a wireless VR experience, a Deluxe Audio Strap that provides a better headphone solution for the Vive, as well as a Vive Tracker that can turn any physical object into a VR controller.

Then there is the HoloLamp, a lamp-shaped projector that brings 3D animated objects to life in the real world with no headset or glasses required. Similarly, Merge VR created a holographic toy called the Holo Cube, which lets users interact with holograms through its headset.

As with last year, 360-degree and VR-ready cameras are also getting some major updates. Ricoh’s new 360-degree camera can live stream for 24 hours, whereas China’s Insta360 created a camera accessory that can clip onto any Android smartphone and turn it into a 360-degree camera. To bring more interactivity to the existing headsets, uSens developed $100 hand-tracking module for VR and AR headsets that simply clips onto a headset and tracks hand movements down to the finger level.

Besides standalone devices, we are also seeing a lot more VR/AR-ready smartphones and PCs at this year’s CES. The ZenFone AR from Asus is the first phone to support both Google’s mobile AR platform Tango and Google’s Daydream VR platform. Asus also debuted a compact VR-ready desktop PC that will retail for just $799. In addition, Lenovo unveiled two new Legion gaming laptops ahead of CES that are VR-ready.

All these latest products from CES demonstrates that VR and AR technology are quickly advancing and becoming more and more attainable for mainstream consumers. As the hardware continues to develop, alternate reality, particularly VR and 360-degree content, is a medium that brand marketers can capitalize on to attract consumer attention with innovative storytelling.

How We Can Help
Our dedicated team of VR experts is here to guide marketers through the distribution landscape. We work closely with brands to develop sustainable VR content strategies to promote branded VR and 360 video content across various apps and platforms. With our proprietary technology stack powered by a combination of best-in-class VR partners and backed by the media fire-power of IPG Mediabrands, we offer customized solutions for distributing and measuring branded VR content that truly enhance brand messaging and contribute to the campaign objectives.

If you’d like to learn more about how the Lab can help you tap into the immersive power of VR content to engage with customers, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

CES 2017 Day 1: LG’s Robot Butler, Plus Highlights From The Smart Home Space

Posted on by Richard Yao

Welcome to the Lab’s coverage of the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest annual tech trade show that sets the consumer tech trends for the coming year. As with previous years, the Lab has a team on the ground in Las Vegas scouting the show floors to bring you the most noteworthy discoveries and announcements that marketers need to know.

What We Saw At CES
It would be an understatement to say that this year’s CES is seeing a surge in smart home devices. We touched upon the ongoing diversifications of smart home products in our first CES newsletter, but there are so many cool little gadgets that aim to make your home life a little easier that we couldn’t include them all. So here are some more highlights from the smart home space at CES.

On Wednesday, LG unveiled Hub Robot, a smart home device intended to compete with Amazon Echo and Google Home. Instead of being more like a cylinder speaker, this R2D2-shaped home assistant robot can not only tell you the weather but also start your vacuum cleaner and turn on your oven, provided that you have connected home appliances that can talk to the Hub Robot over Wi-Fi. LG says it is looking to release this product in select countries within 2017.

In contrast, other new smart home devices on display at CES tend to be a bit more focused in terms of functions. In the bedroom, Sensorwake Oria aims to enhance the quality of sleep with a connected fragrance dispenser. For the bathroom, Moen’s new shower system allows you to pre-heat the water and configure other aspects of your shower experience with a mobile app.

Then in the kitchen, Hello Egg from startup RnD64 is an egg-shaped AI assistant designed to help you plan your meals and grocery shopping meals. As for the refrigerators, there are FridgeCam by Smarter and the NeOse smell recorder that uses camera and smell sensors, respectively, to help you track the freshness of your food and detect expired and spoiled items. In addition, LG also introduced a smart fridge that you can talk to thanks to its integration with Amazon’s Alexa, which is quickly taking over the smart home space and becoming something akin to an operating system for the IoT home devices.

What This Means For Brands
The diversification of home IoT devices showcases the rapid growth and vast value in the smart home space. Revenue in the connected home market is expected to surpass $10,400 million in 2017, with its household penetration rate estimated to hit 32%. As they continue to gain momentum in the consumer market and adopt voice-based interfaces such as Alexa to facilitate user interactions, smart home devices hold great potential for brands because they offer a way in for those brands to reach consumers at home and connect with them in a more intimate, relaxed context. Therefore, brand marketers, especially those in the CPG, food, and lifestyle categories, need to pay close attention to the developments in the smart home space and start exploring possible partnerships.

 

Fast Forward: CES 2017 First Look – Voice-Based Interfaces Grow Prominent

Posted on by Lab Team

This is a special edition of our Fast Forward newsletter, highlighting the major trends we are seeing so far at CES 2017. A fast read for you and a forward for your clients and team.

Welcome to the Lab’s coverage of the 2017 Consumer Electronics ippow. As the biggest global tech gadget trade show, CES draws an increasing amount of exhibitors and attendees every year, setting the stage for this year’s industry trends in consumer tech and offering marketers a glimpse at the future of brand-consumer interactions. As with previous years, The Lab has a team on the ground in Las Vegas scouting the show floors to bring you the most noteworthy discoveries and announcements that marketers need to know.

Amazon’s Alexa Is Everywhere In Smart Home
Taking advantage of Amazon’s recently introduced Alexa Skills Kit, many third-party OEMs, especially those in the smart home space, are integrating Amazon’s beloved digital assistant service Alexa to their devices, granting Amazon a distribution advantage in its battle against rivals like Google Assistant and Microsoft’s Cortana as it proliferates the market with Alexa-enabled devices. A number of companies at CES that have announced products with Alexa integrations, and the notable ones include:

Smart Home And Wearables Diversify And Branch Out
With the voice-assistant services led by Alexa on the rise, we are also seeing continued developments in the smart home device makers continue to diversify their products. Sevenhugs’ new Smart Remote aims to solve the “too many remotes” problem with an adaptable screen that automatically changes interfaces to match the IoT device you’re pointing it to. Similarly, wearable makers are moving away from the fitness-oriented activity trackings and branching out into fashion and pet-care. For instance, Fossil Group is leveraging the assets they obtain from their 2015 acquisition of wearable maker Misfit to power smartwatches for a number of its fashion brands such as Kate Spade, Michael Koors, and Diesel. For pets, there are wearables from Tractive and LinkAKC that go beyond simple location and activity tracking to also let you monitor their wellbeings and help train them.

One particular hot new area of interest for smart home and wearable makers is sleep, evidenced by the first-ever dedicated “sleep tech marketplace” at CES. Vobot unveiled the first Alexa-enabled smart clock that leverages the voice-controlled features to optimize the sleeping experience. Sleep Number is showcasing a new connected bed that can self-adjust to fit your sleeping positions, warm your feet, and to alleviate mild snoring. ZEEQ smart pillow, which first launched on Kickstarter last summer, also brought their sleep-tracking pillow to the show floor. Then there is Motio HW, a smart bracelet designed to monitor sleep apnea, and the Sleep Dot from Acesleep, a small tracker that you put on your pillow to monitor sleep cycles and body movements. In addition, Under Armour is also reportedly set to announce a partnership with IBM’s Watson on a sleep-related product.

Cars Keep Getting Smarter And Better Integrated
Carmakers have been increasing their presence at CES in recent years to showcase their latest innovations in auto tech, and this year is no exception. A number of auto brands are expected to showcase their latest models in the electric and/or self-driving categories, such as the new self-driving, electric concept car that Fiat-Chrysler debuted at its CES event on Tuesday. Electric carmaker Faraday Future also unveiled its first commercial vehicle FF 91, which comes with a massive 1,050 horsepower, a self-parking function, and multiple in-car displays to keep the passengers entertained.

More importantly, we are also seeing many auto brands making strong efforts to integrate their connected car into existing digital ecosystems for a more frictionless user experience outside the car. Hyundai announced a new partnership with Google to add voice control for its cars through Google Home, whereas Nissan hinted at an integration with Microsoft’s Cortana for its new models. Besides leveraging digital voice assistant to bridge smart car with smart home, some are building their own ecosystem. Add in Ford’s Alexa integration announced at last year’s CES, which is now shipping, you’ve got a handful of major automakers ready to let consumers talk to their cars.

What Brands Should Do
Through these three early CES trends that we identified, one common thread emerges – voice-based interfaces are growing prominent, especially on screenless devices such as the IoT smart home devices. Amazon is arguably leading the race of voice-activated personal assistant service with Alexa and its Echo line-up, as the ecommerce giant is estimated to have sold over 9 million Echo devices worldwide over this holiday season, bringing the total number of Echo devices in market to about 14 million. The total number of Alexa-enabled devices, though, is much higher, and is poised to grow considerably after this week’s announcements.

As Amazon continues to push for Alexa’s integration with other smart home providers, the voice-activated assistant is quickly conquering the home space and bringing AI-powered voice-activation to mainstream consumers. This means it is time for brands to start exploring how incorporating conversational interfaces may help improve the customer experience.

For brands that seek to connect with consumers in their homes, the latest developments in smart home and wearable space should come as an encouraging sign that more brand opportunities should arise as the platforms mature. Similarly, connected cars are quickly improving and being integrated into digital ecosystems mostly via voice command, as they set to generate the next growth for consumer media time (a more significant increase in media time, of course, will come with the arrival of self-driving cars, for which all major auto and tech players are now gearing up). As a lot of the smart home devices and cars opt for integrations with voice-activated conversational services such as Alexa, it is becoming more evident than ever that voice-based brand-customer interaction is something that brands have to explore and master with more and more consumers starting to move beyond smartphones and touch screen-based interactions.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The NiroBot we built in collaboration with Ansible for Kia is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on voice-based conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Event Recap: April 2016 NY Tech Meetup

Posted on by Ben Hone

This week, the New York Tech Meetup was hosted at NYU’s Skirball Center. As usual, the Lab was in attendance, keeping tabs on the exciting new startups coming out of our city. This month’s event played host to a number of interesting companies offering varied solutions across a wide array of industries.

The first company of note was COSIGN, which offers a very interesting solution for CPG and fashion brands in particular. Their mission is to turn every socially-shared image into a digital storefront. With their app, users can tag products in their pictures to enable annotations that link other users to purchase. The image can then be shared to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or Tumblr. The user that posts and tags the image can earn points, rewards, and even money for the referral.

If your brand has a strong presence in sports, it may be worthwhile to explore Rukkus, a live entertainment marketplace for buying and selling tickets. They are launching a new feature in their app that allows the user to click on a seat and open a 360 image of the view from the seat. They have already mapped over a hundred live music and sports venues. For the smaller places they can’t reach, they are crowd-sourcing panoramic images taken by users.

For those looking to step up their online dating game, Connectidy analyzes your social media using IBM Watson to create a personal profile. The profile includes your personality traits, needs, and values. The messaging platform also offers a “spell check for emotions,” which tells you how your messages are coming off and what to do to optimize them. Once you’ve taken your online romance to the next level and met in person, Connectidy will allow users to rate their date and provide feedback to each other. It also uses IBM’s cognitive computing to refine your profile over time based on all interaction touch points.

A number of other companies introduced their impressive solutions. These included an incredible reverse image search based on a neural network; a gamified productivity app to fight procrastination; a modular, hackable, smart band; and a centralized workflow platform for the hospitality industry. The Lab looks forward to May’s array of entrepreneurs and startups.

 

Event Recap: Districtpitch – Digital Media and Ad Tech

Posted on by Ben Hone

On March 29th, the Lab attended Districtpitch: Digital Media and Ad Tech. Founders and entrepreneurs faced the crowd and a panel of judges to pitch their early-stage companies. Here is a roundup of companies that presented yesterday.

We have all experienced that empty feeling after finishing a TV series and having no clue what to watch next. Stareable is a content discovery destination that helps you find your next show. It is a community-driven TV guide that links users to where they can watch. Users submit reviews and recommendations that help direct others towards their next favorite obsession. Stareable is ad-supported with standard display ads so there is no cost to the end user.

Slidejoy is an Android app that delivers ads and news to a phone’s lock screen in exchange for rewards. They receive fantastic engagement because the units are the first thing people see when they look at their phone and the audience has opted-in to receive messaging. 80-85% of their users are in the US.

Tinybeans is a social media app for families, essentially an online scrapbook of your kids. They collect metadata on the families in order to help brands market effectively to the parents. They currently have 1.1 million registered users, 80% of which are in the US.

Another social app with children in mind is Skit! Kids. They have gamified storytelling by allowing children to collaborate remotely to create videos. Other users can remix and change existing stories on the platform. Their revenue model includes in-app purchases and product placement that aligns with the environment. Skit! Kids is COPA-compliant and every piece of content created within the app is checked by a human moderator.

Finally, there were two location-based targeting companies that presented as well. Exploreka helps brands deliver contextually relevant messaging to the right consumer at the right time. Notify Nearby is a mobile app that leverages a network of beacons to target shoppers with relevant messaging in a consolidated news feed.

IPG Lab Releases SXSW 2016 Trend Recap

Posted on by Lab Team

Every year, the Lab team takes a trip down south to attend the South By Southwest festival (SXSW) in Austin, TX. And this year was no different. Over the course of SXSW Interactive last week, we met up with a number of new partners and startups to learn about some of the cutting-edge marketing solutions they have to offer and uncovered some of the emerging market trends they represent. Here are the main themes.

VR Distribution And Analytics
With the increasing availability of consumer-facing VR headsets, brands and publishers are beginning to think through their VR distribution strategy. The two main strategies are partnering with 3rd-party distributors such as Facebook, Littlstar, or YouTube, or building their own VR player and launching it across the VR devices. While brands won’t see immediate ROI from VR content today, brands will want to know how their VR content is performing. A partner we scouted will begin to work with brands and VR producers to allow them to acquire, aggregate, and analyze audience behavior within 360 videos or VR games.

One partner we met with during SXSW enables brands, publishers, and content creators to easily create and share true VR content across most existing VR devices through their app. Another partner is offering brands a white-label solution to deliver an immersive experience to fans and allowing access to events and festivals all over the world through VR.

Brands Find Their Voice at SXSW
As discussed in our Outlook 2016, conversational interfaces are are powering new applications and devices in the home, car, and in messaging apps. Along with the major tech companies, there are many startups building this future. We met with two companies at SXSW who are building AI personas that communicate with users in messaging apps. These apps use emotional elements layered into automated replies making users feel more comfortable engaging with virtual characters and are therefore more receptive to the AI’s suggestions, including product recommendations. Brands own all the data captured from these interactions, which can mine them for deeper insights.

Another partner we met with creates AI-powered virtual reality avatars that interact with viewers via voice. These characters remember users across sessions and devices so the user can build relationships with users over time, adding a hook that will keep users coming back and extend session times.

Mobile Social Video Messaging
Over the years, SXSW has been a launchpad for social media startups such as Twitter and Foursquare. Last year Meerkat was the breakout app of SXSW, but besides that we began to see the transition from social media to social messaging, and that trend continues this year.

The social messaging partners we met at SXSW focused on communication, content creation, and shareability. The first partner we met with created a video messaging app that delivers one-to-one or one-to-many video messages, even in low bandwidth situations. Another partner we met with is one of the fastest growing video editing apps in SE Asia and is beginning to work with select US brands. They are looking to leverage their face-tracking engine to create animated stickers to be shared on messaging apps. The last partner we met with is a social video content and delivery app that enables users to record, watch, and share videos instantly with friends and other people in the same proximity without Wi-Fi or cellular service.

Passive and Active Audience Data Collection
Brands spend millions of dollars to collect audience data to inform brand messaging and strategy. A number of companies at SXSW provide solutions to acquiring audience insights, with approaches varying from passive to active.  

We met with a number of tech partners whose passive approach allows brands to collect honest, actionable insights through automated conversations at scale in messaging apps that users have chosen to participate in. Using artificially intelligent characters that use natural language, this setup creates an environment in which users are more willing to share free-form answers to open-ended questions than they would in a formulaic questionnaire.

Other companies are employing a more active approach to data collection. One company, for example, prompts users to answer a short question in exchange for access to exclusive content. The questions are pre-approved and designed by brand clients to generate useful insights. Another company captures all the social activity that occurs within a geo-fenced area and identifies power users and influencers, leveraging this information to help clients’ social teams engage on a personal level in real time.

Keep Innovation Weird
“Keep Austin Weird” is a common phrase heard around SXSW. Not only is the city itself a bit peculiar, but there are a number of companies in attendance that are taking very outside-the-box approaches to tech and innovation.

One company, for example, is turning the fruit garnishes that decorate your food and drinks into ad space. Using FDA-approved, natural-light carbon lasers, they brand the skin of lemons, limes, and oranges with logos or messaging. The company has partnered with Sysco to increase their distribution, creating the first and only produce ad network to provide bars and restaurants with free fruit, paid for by ad dollars. Another company we met with is building a gesture and movement database with training, recovery, and healthcare implications. Their SDK allows developers to recognize and track human movements to generate more precise biometric data. These metrics enable brands to connect biometrics with real activity in order to trigger rewards or personalize messaging.

To learn more about the partners we met at this year’s SXSW and find out how their marketing solutions can serve your brand, please contact our Engagement Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]).

 

 

What You Need To Know About Today’s Apple Event

Posted on by Richard Yao

As you may have heard, Apple hosted a keynote event at its Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino earlier today. As anticipated, the company unveiled a new 4-inch iPhone model and a smaller iPad Pro. A new addition to its healthcare toolkits was one of the few surprises. Here is everything a marketer should know about Apple’s announcements today.  

iPhone SE Aims To Reach More Consumers
Apple has been pushing for bigger screens since the iPhone 6, but the company says that most first-time iPhone users are still buying 4-inch iPhones, especially those in certain global markets such as China. In fact, Apple sold over 30 million 4-inch iPhones in 2015 alone. Aiming to capture those smaller-phone lovers, Apple introduced the iPhone SE which comes with a 4-inch screen and significant hardware improvements from Apple’s last 4-inch offering. Equipped with the A9 processor and the M9 motion coprocessor, iPhone SE is as powerful as the iPhone 6s, and will no doubt bring the latest features, such as Apple Pay, always-on Siri, and Touch ID, to more smartphone users.

iPad Pro Positioned As A PC Replacement
Apple also followed up last year’s 12.9-inch iPad Pro with a smaller version. The new iPad Pro comes with a 9.7-inch retina display, improved hardware specs, and its own custom keyboard. The Cupertino company shared that of the 308 million total iPads sold, over 200 million have had 9.7-inch screens, and that the majority of iPad Pro buyers were moving from a Windows PC. With over 1 million apps designed for iPad available in the App Store, Apple seems bullish on the iPad Pro’s market positioning as a PC replacement.

New CareKit To Boost Healthcare Apps
Apple’s HealthKit, which helps collect data for medical studies, has proven to be a hit among medical professionals. In fact, Apple says it facilitated the largest Parkinson’s study to date in less than 24 hours of its launch last year. To follow up on the ResearchKit’s early success, Apple debuted a new developer framework called CareKit, which focuses on patient-facing data that can assist chronic patient care or monitoring post-surgical recovery. The first app to use this framework will also focus on Parkinson’s. This new developer tool should provide healthcare brands with another great channel to learn more about patients’ needs.

Header image courtesy of Apple.com

SXSW 2016: Brands Tap Snapchat’s Sponsored Geofilters

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
When Snapchat opened up its Geofilters to brands for customization and purchase last month, we anticipated it to be heavily used at festivals and events to target the attendees. Now, unsurprisingly, a number of brands, including Samsung, Avocados From Mexico, Spotify, and AreaNet’s GW2 video game, are now using the Geofilters in Austin, TX, to reach the hundreds of thousands people in town to attend this year’s SXSW festival.  

What Brands Need To Do
Branded Geofilters offer a great tool to get your brand seen via user-generated social content, especially so at special events as they encourage participators to mark the occasion. As Snapchat continues to develop its ad products, brands should continue to experiment with different tools to find the best way to engage young consumers on Snapchat.

 

Source: AdWeek