Daily Archives: February 22, 2017

Children are insane. Or, more precisely, they don't think logically as adults do. Children aren't burdened by hardened adult preconceptions and expectations, so suffer fewer roadblocks to learning new things. This different way of seeing things is why children adapt so easily to high tech that confuses the rest of us.

That's the theoretical basis behind "Mimsy Were The Borogoves," a classic science fiction tale from 1943 in which two children find a box of toys from the future that they totally grok but which flummox their Euclidian-conditioned parents. (You can read "Mimsy" here or watch the movie version, The Last Mimzy.)

Could we be approaching the unidentified future from which Mimsy's high tech toys originated?

At the annual Toy Fair, held this past President's Day weekend in New York city, I found some playthings instilled with bleeding edge technologies even I barely understand but that today's youngsters should have no trouble taking to just like the children in "Mimsy" hopefully, without the story's strange consequences.

For instance, there was a futuristic version of one of the most iconic toys of all time Barbie. Mattel showed off Hello Barbie Hologram, which is sort of a personalized 3D animated Amazon Alexa.

You can ask Hello Barbie Hologram Alexa-like questions, prefaced by "Hello, Barbie," such as for the weather. But instead of Stephen Hawking-like monotone responses, you get an effervescent Barbie not only playfully announcing the local outdoor conditions, but you get a visual; for instance, if Barbie tells you it's raining cats and dogs, you get a holographic visual of canines and felines pouring from the sky. You can voice command the hologram Barbie to set alarms, night lights and daily reminders. You can also change hologram Barbie's size and skin tone and ask her to perform a number of dances.

Hello Barbie Hologram will be available sometime this fall for less than $300.

VR has been popping up in a few toys in the last couple of years, but at Toy Fair I saw three unique applications that seem to more holistically integrate VR into the design of the toy rather than haphazardly tacked on.

A start-up called Tilt is advancing "textile tech" in its SpinTales, which uses a duvet, a rug and VR to, well, put a new spin on some old stories for children. The SpinTales app includes three stories: Little Red (as in Little Red Riding Hood), 3 Pigs (as in the Three Little Pigs) and Magic Beans (as in Jack and Beanstalk). You then buy either the SpinTales Enchanted Duvet or the throw Jungle Rug ($99.99 each).

Your child activates one of the games on their smartphone or tablet and picks different activities. When prompted, the child then holds the tablet or smartphone over a matching section on the duvet or rug to activate the 3D VR, which displays an exploration of the immediate vicinity as the character moves around.

What makes SpinTales fascinating is that the bedspread and throw rug are ever-present; they don't have to dug out of a closet or toy chest or located under a pile of other discarded toys, dirty clothes or the bed.

One of the more fascinating VR games I saw isn't a product you'll be able to buy, but a "mixed reality game" technology concept that combines VR and RFID from a Quebec-based developer, bkom Studios. You move physical RFID-equipped tokens around a board; each token then generates a VR character that can be seen on the corresponding app on a smartphone or tablet or a more 360-degree view through VR goggles. Scanning playing cards triggers each character's activities.

bkom hopes to sell the technology for game developers to create new VR/RFID games.

A mixed reality learning VR plaything you soon will be able to buy is "Animal World with Jessica" from Odyssey ($39.95, April/May). Inside the smart box the cover acts as an interactive VR game board includes 65 VR animal cards, VR goggles, eight coloring paper sheets and a combined smartphone/tablet holder.

After downloading the "Animal World" app, a child holds a card so the smartphone or tablet camera can see it, which activates a moving, interactive VR version of that animal viewed on either a touchscreen device or more fully through the VR goggles. The animal can be manipulated while information about it is imparted to the child. Two animals can be created to interact with each other, or your child can switch the camera view and take a selfie with the animal.

At some point, the "Animal World" developers hope to update the app so children will be able to virtually feed the animals as well as talk to them ala Dr. Doolittle. Additional mixed reality educational card sets with different topics are planned.

A plethora of companies have been developing simplistic robot toys and robot learning and construction kits for the last few years. But Fisher-Price has built instead an inexpensive version of a home robot designed to help your youngest kids learn while playing.

The company's cute, nearly foot-tall Teach n' Tag Movi ($49.99, fall) is an interactive learning buddy that can follow directions, play games and displays animated facial expressions that help give it a personality. It can roll around via voice command on three wheels on nearly any surface.

Movi, which will operate on three C cells and is designed for youngsters 3-6, includes three play modes: Alpha Fun Actions, Think & Move Shapes and Learn & Play Games including Red Light/Green Light and Silly Sounds Tag. Two buttons on top of Movi allow for a child's direct input.

Not quite Isaac Asimov's Robbie, the first robot presented in his "I, Robot" collection, another, more optimistic look at our robot buddy future, but getting there.

Hopefully, these robot, VR and hologram toys won't cause the mischief the sci-fi playthings do in "Mimsy," but merely prepare your prodigy for life in their non-fictional future.

View post:
Futurist Sci-Fi Toys Are Here Now - Huffington Post

As the world gets excited about the possibilities that VR unfolds for all of us in the business of marketing brands, Im reminded of the golden adage: People will forget what you did, but theyll never forget how you made them feel.

Yes, emotions are back in business and today they are becoming even more measurable in real-time. As the buzz on building smarter cities and a smarter life gains momentum, one can expect technology to play a larger role in driving marketing engagements.

We expect to see more IOT and tech-enabled conversations driving B2B and B2C relationships. Marketers will be expected to find compelling narratives to better emote and engage with customers. As such, leading global telcos and tech brands are converging their products, services and infrastructure to create a more immersive and pronounced engagement with customers.

Marketing beyond VR

Sure, newfangled tech and nifty platforms, such as AR, VR, wearables and apps do help take the brand experience narrative forward, but often they dont necessarily form the narrative itself. This is a reason why more and more marketers have started investing increasingly in collaborative commerce platforms and experience centres.

Collaborative commerce platforms are fast becoming a new model of marketing engagement especially with IT and telco corporations. Brands are increasingly involving their member/customer base in not just running campaigns, but the business itself.

The active advocacy and emotional ownership that such engagements presents are tough to match through conventional social/digital marketing routes. Brand experience centres are not your flagship stores and they dont substitute for the experience. Today, brands from across industries are investing significantly in building their marquee experience centres.

While the wave of customer experience centres started as an effective way to engage B2B customers, with the likes of British Telecom and VADS back home inviting its prospects to come and experience how they could help solve complex real-life business issues in real time, the marketing practice has caught the fancy of non-tech companies as an opportunity to immerse and excite the public in the types of possibilities it creates.

Companies from across the industry spectrum are actively engaging in creating mini experience centres to immerse target segments.

The digital paradox for marketers

Organisations are busy bucking up their respective digital transformation journey. While it will ease the pressure of marketing in organising, managing and serving various customer segments, invariably it will make it increasingly tougher for brands to connect emotively with their customers in the digital age.

However, on the other hand, brands such as Amazon have effectively created a well thought out customer gratification model that keeps its emotive connect intact. In fact, the brand for the first time in its history has gone from a pure click to a brick and mortar model with physical stores in countries such as India.

Underscoring the realisation that marketing in the digital age will increasingly rely on creating immersive brand experiences be they physical, virtual or collaborative in nature.

Yes, advancements in tech be they AR, VR, bots, wearables or 3D printing will serve as effective special effects, but the narrative will need to rely on telling an effective story that engages all the five senses, which creates memorability, talkability and shareability beyond likes and views.

The author of the article is Izlyn Ramli, vice-president, group brand and communication Telekom Malaysia.

Original post:
The Futurist: Making an emotional connection | Marketing Interactive - Marketing Interactive