Monthly Archives: May 2015

Sweeping Away The Typical Trash Can

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As smart technology spreads to our home appliances, items we never could have imagined are beginning to get the “smart” treatment. Case in point, the trash can. With “serial inventors” Jim Howard and Lori Montag’s new bruno smartcan, the trash can is getting a major upgrade. By syncing with your phone, bruno will alert you when to take out the trash (based on your local trash collection day), when you’re out of trash bags, and will even help your order new bags on your phone. The bruno smartcan uses motion technology in order to create a hands-free lid. And perhaps most impressively, the bruno smartcan has a vacuum at its base, effectively eliminating the need for a dustpan. Since its Kickstarter launched on April 29th, over $89,400 has been pledged and news outlets like Fast Company and CNET have written about it.

Learn more about bruno on its Kickstarter page and see one in action.

What Spark Our Fire: Creatively reimagining the most mundane household items with smart technology

Google Changes the Game.. Again

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You’ve probably heard that at it’s AdWords Performance Summit this week, Google confirmed that the inevitable has occurred: mobile search have overtaken desktop search in ten countries, including the US and Japan.  Why does this matter to you and your brand? We’ve put together a list of the five most important takeaways and how they will effect businesses everywhere.

1. Google has unveiled new ad experiences in three distinct categories– automotive, hotel, and mortgages– in order to streamline convenience. The automotive ad experiences, for instance, will feature a photo carousel allowing users to swipe through photos both inside and outside of the vehicle. They’ll also have a link directly to dealerships selling the vehicle in their area. Similar relevant features will be built into the hotel and mortgages ad experiences, as well.

2. A new store visit predictor is available in the US, Canada and Australia. This tool will help marketing managers understand how their digital campaigns are driving in-store sales, and subsequently, will allow them to have better insights into their ROI.

3. Google’s beefing up their automatic advertising offerings, including giving marketers more transparency in the programmatic bidding process, and introducing dynamic search ads. Vice President of Product Management for AdWords, Jerry Dischler, says that this will be a “powerful way to automatically show timely and relevant ads based on the content of your website– without the need to manage keywords.”

4. Going along with new automatic advertising offerings, Google will integrate cross-device conversions into automatic bidding. This will allow marketers to capitalize on search activity that begins on one device and and ends on another.

5. The understanding that more users now search on their phones as opposed to their desktops (as well as the new tools Google has introduced) only reinforces Google’s decision to overhaul it’s mobile search algorithm, which went into effect last month. By designing new ad experiences, and giving marketers new tools in AdWords, Google is incentivizing businesses to keep pace with the shifting desktop-to-mobile landscape.

 

Artworks By Rainworks!

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Nothing can ruin a morning as quickly as a rain storm. Fortunately, Peregrine Church thought of a clever way to get rain to make people smile instead. The Seattle based artist created rain-activated street art (or, to be specific, ground art) that can only be seen after the rain has soaked into the ground, and named it Rainworks!

After watching Youtube videos that showed red wine rolling straight down a person’s white clothes, Peregrine found out that this was possible because of a super hydrophobic coating that prevented the absorption of liquids. Inspired, Peregrine decided to take some stencils to the street and test out his bio-degradable and environmentally safe hydrophobic coating spray. The formula sat invisibly on top of the concrete during dry weather, and prevented the ground from absorbing water during rain storms.

Much like the recent appearance of moss graffiti, Peregrine’s Rainworks! uses (mostly) natural elements to create art in unexpected places. And while this street art is only legal in because it is not used for advertising, we think brands can find inspiration in the way Peregrine innovated on existing technology and used it in the most creative possible way.

What Sparks Our Fire: Repurposing existing technology in new and creative ways

The Power in a Name

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Since 2006, Tesla Motors‘ cars have earned their reputation as industry paragons of energy sustainability. As of last week, they will utilize their technology to revolutionize the home and commercial energy market. At the Tesla Energy Powerwall Home Battery Event held in Hawthorne, CA, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced plans to release the Powerwall Home Battery.

The Powerwall battery will act as power storage for homes and businesses. While there are many uses for the battery’s energy storage, it is mainly seen as a storage system for residences off the energy grid (e.g. residences using solar energy), residences looking to protect against power outages, or residences looking to purchase energy at times when the price is lower and consume it when the price goes up. And while all these will eventually save homeowners money, it’s $3500 price tag will probably lead businesses to become the earliest adopters of the technology. Specifically, businesses that need extra assurances against power-outages. For example, movie theaters, are said to be already looking into this product.

After the event, some tech reporters were quick to point out that home energy storage isn’t exactly new: UPS (or, Uninterruptible Power Supply) technology has been on the market for some time now. However, Tesla’s big announcement brought a few major quality improvements to the existing technology. Tesla’s battery is smaller and more lightweight than any of it’s competitors, and it comes with Tesla’s record of reliability.

But perhaps more importantly, from a branding perspective, by unveiling a Tesla-branded battery at a large event with the whole industry watching, they’ve brought public attention to UPS technology.  By leveraging their existing brand equity in addition to innovating on the existing technology, Tesla was able to bring UPS technology to the forefront of the public eye.

What Sparks Our Fire: The power of brands shifting its public interest towards energy efficient and sustainable technology

Work-Life Balance: The Key to Millennial Hearts Around the World

Youthful Cities

In the past few years, it seems the entire world has shifted their focus toward millennials. It’s not just brands that are reaching out to this key audience. The latest study by Youthful Cities, pulls together great insights into millennial behaviors and how cities themselves are mobilizing to attract this demographic.

As of 2012, 50 percent of the world’s population is under 30 years of age and 50 percent of the world’s population now live in cities.  Cities are extending offerings and services that accommodate millennial-friendly lifestyles and brands should look to the cities who are most successful in this for inspiration.

Here are the top 10 cities who’ve been most successful in attracting millennials:

1. New York City
2. London
3. Berlin
4. San Francisco
5. Paris
6. Toronto
7. Chicago
8. Los Angeles
9. Mexico City
10. Amsterdam

As marketers, it’s  key to understand our audiences behaviors, so that we can continue to develop engaging content, campaigns and experiences that connect with this audience.

What sparks our fire: Data data data! Knowledge powers our creativity.