This is a seriously good idea from Johnson & Johnson Middle East, a great example of how tech can be used to make a real emotional impact. These days, more and more families live outside their home countries, especially in the Middle East. As such, the grandparents in these families are even further removed from their children and grandchildren, lucky if they get to see them every year or two.
The ‘Grandparents Frame’ is a digital photo frame that let’s Grandparents, who typically aren’t on social media, witness their grandkids growing up via a social photo sharing app. We actually pitched to build this app for Impact BBDO but didn’t get it unfortunately. Still a bit of a tearjerker though.
Facebook’s $2 Billion acquisition of virtual reality headset manufacturer Oculus Rift last week left a lot of people confused. The connection between a social media platform and virtual reality hardware is not exactly obvious after all. This video gives an idea of the potential that this coming together of technologies could unleash, particularly in an online retail capacity.
It might seem unthinkable, but if the rumblings that have come out of Twitter over the last few days are anything to go by, it looks like the company is intent on getting rid of the famous Hashtag and ‘@’ reply handles that have become so synonymous with the platform.
Twitter’s Head Of News, Vivian Schiller, recently described hashtags and @ replies as “arcane” and hinted that they would be ‘streamlined’ to help new users better understand the concept of Twitter. Removing the ‘scaffolding’ of the service as they call it, making it more like Facebook, who already use this approach re: mentions in posts.
Reaction has been somewhat negative so far among users and online commentators but my bet is that it will be the same as usual when there is a fundamental change on a social media platform, at the beginning there will be a few grumbles, but users will get used to it, get over it, and ultimately forget what it was like before hand.
I was lucky enough to have attended the Dubai Lynx Festival of Creativity this week (the MENA sister event to the Cannes Lions festival) and it only dawned on me, seeing so many fantastic advertising campaigns in one place, that the creative standard of the advertising that we typically see on a daily basis (mainly via the web) has seriously deteriorated in recent years.
While social media and tech capabilities have come to the forefront of the advertising world over the last three or four years, it seems that genuine creativity, at least as far as the copy of a campaign is concerned, has taken a back seat, having been replaced by gimmicky concepts aimed around getting the campaign shared. Creative and thought provoking copy, and it’s associated brand building benefits, has suffered with a move away from impact, to reach, and the folly of social ‘engagement’.
Humour can be used to great effect by some brands but it seems that more and more companies are opting for this approach, playing the role of the class clown, relying on Facebook Meme’s etc. to get their name out there, which is hardly a sturdy foundation to build your brand on (‘lads brands’ like Paddy Power excluded).
All is not lost though, as exemplified by the likes of the moving winner of the YouTube 7-Day Brief above, or the story of how a Hong Kong student rose from obscurity after a Steve Jobs piece received worldwide attention, and went on to create one of the most iconic adverts for Coca-Cola in the company’s history (below). Of course the online approach must be considered when developing an ad campaign but, as these ads show, this certainly doesn’t have to be at the expense of creative copy.
Creative advertising is still alive and well, even if it doesn’t show up in your Facebook newsfeed.
There’s been a lot of talk over the last couple of months about Amazon’s delivery drone concept and how it could revolutionize logistics and online purchasing in particular. But even Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos admits it is up to 5 years from seeing the light of day due to the multitude of regulations and lengthy approval process required to get such an idea off the ground (pun very much intended) in the United States.
Similarly, the government of Dubai announced at theGovernment Summit earlier this monththat they are also testing delivery drones with the intention of using them for delivery of government documents such as ID’s amongst other things. With the city of Dubai presumably able to fast-track the testing process and waive certain regulations in its continued bid to brand itself as an innovation hub, could drone delivery become the norm in Dubai a lot sooner than we thought?
About Me
I’m a Digital Strategist passionate about the intersection between technology and creative marketing. Last year I moved to London after 11 years living in Dubai.
