Audi A8: when design meets technology. An example of dimentional print marketing.

Departures, the glossy magazine for American Express Platinum Card members published by Meredith Corporation, is merging print and digital for a new Audi campaign. To call attention to the 2019 Audi A8, the automaker worked with the magazine’s creative team to produce a special animated insert for 25,000 targeted Departures subscribers, who will get a replica Audi key fob in the mail in a padded envelope along with the November/December issue containing the insert.
It works like this: A reader can use her replica fob to “unlock” the Audi A8 shown in the ad, and an ultrathin microprocessor sandwiched between the glossy cardstock of the insert then activates organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) that mimic the way the real-life vehicle’s taillights behave. The ad also activates itself without the key fob when first  open. (See a short demo video below.)

Audi is putting a lot of emphasis on the vehicle’s luxury touches, and considers the new taillight “greeting” to be a signature visual feature of the 2019 A8. It was dreamed up by Audi Design Chief Mark Lichte.
Giulio Capua, vice president and publisher of Departures, tells Ad Age that he and his team wanted to “create something truly innovative and show-stopping” that would offer an “imaginative introduction” to the design-meets-technology message of the car’s launch. Loren Angelo, VP of marketing for Audi of America, says the goal was to not only create something “eye-catching,” but to interactively demonstrate the 2019 A8’s “next-generation lighting design in an entirely new and unique way” that otherwise could only be experienced on the lot of an Audi dealership.
The technology for the ad was produced for Departures by Structural Graphics, an Essex, Connecticut-based expert in what it calls “dimensional print marketing.” Among its greatest hits: an E-Ink execution for the 75th anniversary issue of Esquire 10 years ago.

Source: AdvertisingAge

Social Shopping: Snapchat is partnering with Amazon.

See, snap, sale. In a rare partnership for Amazon, the commerce giant will help Snapchat challenge Instagram and Pinterest for social shopping supremacy. Today Snapchat announced it’s slowly rolling out a new visual product search feature, confirming TechCrunch’s July scoop about this project, codenamed “Eagle.”

Users can use Snapchat’s camera to scan a physical object or barcode, which brings up a card showing that item and similar ones along with their title, price, thumbnail image, average review score and Prime availability. When they tap on one, they’ll be sent to Amazon’s app or site to buy it. Snapchat determines if you’re scanning a song, QR Snapcode or object, and then Amazon’s machine vision tech recognizes logos, artwork, package covers or other unique identifying marks to find the product. It’s rolling out to a small percentage of U.S. users first before Snap considers other countries.

Snap refused to disclose any financial terms of the partnership. It could be earning a referral fee for each thing you buy from Amazon, or it could just be doing the legwork for free in exchange for added utility. A Snapchat spokesperson tells me the latter is the motivation (without ruling out the former), as Snapchat wants its camera to become the new cursor — your point of interface between the real and digital worlds.

Social commerce is heating up as Instagram launches Shopping tags in Stories and a dedicated Shopping channel in Explore, while Pinterest opens up Shop the Look pins and hits 250 million monthly users. The feature should mesh well with Snap’s young and culture-obsessed audience. In the U.S., its users are 20 percent more likely to have made a mobile purchase than non-users, and 60 percent more likely to make impulse purchases according to studies by Murphy Research and GfK.

The feature functions similarly to Pinterest’s Lens visual search tool. In the video demo above, you can see Snapchat identifying Under Armour’s HOVR shoe (amongst all its other models), and the barcode for CoverGirl’s clean matte liquid makeup. That matches our scoop based on code dug out of Snapchat’s Android app by TechCrunch tipster Ishan Agarwal. Snapchat’s shares popped three percent the day we published that scoop, and again this morning before falling back to half that gain.

The feature could prove useful for when you don’t know the name of the product you’re looking at, as with shoes. That could turn visual search into a new form of word-of-mouth marketing where every time an owner shows off a product, they’re effectively erecting a billboard for it. Eventually, visual search could help users shop across language barriers.

Amazon is clearly warming up to social partnerships, recognizing its inadequacy in that department. Along with being named Snapchat’s official search partner, it’s also going to be bringing Alexa voice control to Facebook’s Portal video chat screen, which is reportedly debuting this week according to Cheddar’s Alex Heath.

Snapchat could use the help. It’s now losing users and money, down from 191 million to 188 million daily active users last quarter while burning $353 million. Partnering instead of trying to build all its technology in-house could help reduce that financial loss, while added utility could aid with user growth. And if Snap can convince advertisers, they might pay to educate people on how to scan their products with Snapchat.

Snap keeps saying it wants to be a “Camera Company,” but it’s really an augmented reality software layer through which to see the world. The question will be whether it can change our behavior so that when we see something special, we interact with it through the camera, not just capture it.

Source: https://techcrunch.com

TOP 10 Tech trends for 2018

Every year, an interdisciplinary team of futurists, analysts and consultants in Frost & Sullivan’s Visionary Innovation Group takes a pause from looking at 10-year horizons, and comes together to identify the trends that will make the biggest impact in the coming year.

So how did we score with our predictions for 2017? We hit a bull’s eye with our assertions regarding Data-as-a-Service, Connected Living, the AI Personal Assistant Race, Cognitive is the New Smart, and the Industrial IOT Ecosystem play. (Confession: We were not, alas, as successful in our predictions about what the current U.S. administration would say or do!)

2017 saw major advances in the Smart Home space that both our Connected Living and AI Personal Assistant predictions addressed. Google launched a smart home system, as we predicted, and smart home systems saw major leaps in terms of adoption and capabilities.

Data-as-a-Service was a huge theme for the year, one in which we saw strong interest from industries ranging from health wearables and auto manufacturers, to industrial solution providers. The conversation around how to take advantage of data you already own, and develop products that will generate increasing volumes of valuable data, markedly gained in intensity over the last year. This also closely tied into our theme of Cognitive is the New Smart, with all of this data serving as the foundation for AI capabilities.

One trend in which our outlier prediction prevailed over traditional expectations was about the trend of increasing insularity, nationalism and protectionism. At the end of 2016, it looked as though countries around the world were poised to turn inward and retreat from the global stage. While that did happen in isolated cases, for the most part voters (just about) rejected this continued sentiment in major elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

As we look to 2018, we see several common themes emerging: the rapidly growing and transformational nature of technology continues to dominate the conversation, but we can expect it to be paralleled by an increasingly passionate debate about the extent and degree of government and regulatory influence aimed at mitigating the growing power of technology. This will gain momentum as leading tech companies race toward a trillion dollar valuation, and scrutiny of and protection against misinformation and hacking increases. Further in the technology space, we can also expect to see the emergence of themes that were regarded as the preserve of science fiction, such as the testing of flying cars (truly, back to the future!) and the emergence of quantum supremacy. Less tech-focused themes include the rise of a new generation of political leaders and the growing adoption of behavioural science by enterprises, with a focus on optimising both employee productivity and consumer purchase patterns.

The Trillion-Dollar Sprint

2018 is likely to be the year that a leading Fortune 500 company (think tech titans Apple, Google, Microsoft or Amazon, with petroleum giant Saudi Aramco crashing the tech party) surpasses the trillion dollar valuation mark. The trillion-dollar question is which corporate behemoth will be the first to claim this bragging right? Attainment of this benchmark will highlight a new level of corporate power and influence but will also result in closer monitoring by competitors, regulators and consumers. These companies might become trillion dollar babies but key for them will be earning and retaining public trust the world over.

The Innovation Tug-of-War

Rising concerns regarding technology companies’ increasing power is driving pushback from government organizations, and we expect this trend to gain momentum in 2018. Greater government and regulatory oversight is likely to protect consumers and curb corporate overreach, but may also stunt innovation. Underscoring this trend will be the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into effect in mid-2018, as well as adjusted net neutrality rules in the US.

The Quantum Leap

Long the domain of science fiction and theory, quantum computing looks poised to outperform traditional supercomputers and achieve supremacy in 2018. Competitors in the space are aggressively racing to increase their qubit computing power, while minimizing the potential for errors. Experimentation of quantum computing in conjunction with encryption, AI, materials, and qubit generation will be key areas of focus in 2018. Be ready to hear “Quantum” as the next buzz word.

Flying Cars Reach for the Skies

Get ready to throw out the conventional road safety rule book. You might not have to check skywards just yet when you cross the road, but flying cars are getting ready to ruffle some feathers (and it’s not just birds we are talking about!). Numerous competitors laid the groundwork in 2017, testing their flying vehicle models, with more expected in 2018. The biggest leap forward in this space, and in the public’s popular imagination, will be the much anticipated launch of a flying taxi service in Dubai this summer. Expect more buzz worthy investments as awareness becomes more widespread.

Companies Listen In for Lucre

Fears over tech companies eavesdropping on consumer conversations have been inflamed with the rising adoption of Smart Home devices and AI Personal Assistants. This will be a hot button topic as capabilities and past incidents signal the high likelihood of conversations being illegally tapped. Gear up for intensified media scrutiny along with consumer and regulatory pushback in 2018.

Debunking the Fabricated

It’s not as if fake news is a novel idea. But, it hogged the headlines in 2017 as fact and fiction got completely tangled (or, do we mean mangled?). Governments, industry participants and citizen-focused initiatives are already coming together to identify, reduce and prevent misinformation strategies and fake news in 2018. In light of recent incidents, the focus will be on quelling interference in political processes and social polarization efforts. Developments may lead to the segmentation of social media based on verified identities, pseudonyms, and anonymous environments.

Embracing the Rise of Enterprise Behavioural Science

We expect to see 2018 as the year that behavioural science takes hold in the enterprise, with savvy companies embracing these economic and social science principles to increase worker productivity and nudge consumers towards desirable outcomes. Media attention on early adopters and Nobel Prize recognition of the discipline’s founder will prompt growing adoption in 2018. Brace yourself for a flurry of behavioural science consultancies, as well as more behavioral scientists in HR, strategy, and marketing positions.

Brand Youth as Politics Undergoes a Generational Shift

Justin Trudeau is perhaps the most recognizable among a new generation of political leaders from around the world—New Zealand to North Korea, and Austria to Saudi Arabia—who are redefining politics as usual. While some of these new leaders champion political views stereotypical of their generation, others have veered towards more conventional ideas. The emergence of these young leaders marks a watershed: it will signal either a rising tide of millennial leaders, or will relegate these early entrants to a short-lived experiment with change.

Managing Global Natural Disaster Strategies

Hurricanes, mudslides, earthquakes and floods battered the world with unprecedented frequency and ferocity in 2017. As the social and economic toll mounts, prepare for consortiums of businesses, municipalities and insurance companies working together in 2018 to take more aggressive steps and employ innovative strategies to minimize the impact of these natural disasters.

Platform-Only Business Models Cede GroundIn 2017, we saw some interesting developments at the world’s most notable platforms, Uber and AirBnB, which indicated a move beyond platform-only business models and into acquisition and partnership with asset providers. This underlined a need to differentiate and overcome some of the challenges that a platform-only model presents, with the objective of increasing the value of both digital and physical assets.

Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarwantsingh/2018/02/01/top-10-trends-for-2018/#7365743e7cb3