3Is Strategy

We are a community of strategists, and specialists from all disciplines - united together to provide inspiration and ignite meaningful connections between brands and consumers. We foster innovative thinking and creative strategy around new channels, touch points, content and experiences to design OSEP implementations. 3Is for Inspiration, Ideas and Innovation 

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Magazine publisher teams up with Amazon for ‘scan to shop’ pages

Source: Contagious

Hearst is experimenting with content-to-commerce to make its print editions work harder

Hearst is making pages of its Cosmopolitan and Seventeen magazines shoppable by including Amazon SmileCodes.

The SmileCodes work like QR codes, but are specific to Amazon and its mobile app. When people see a SmileCode next to a product on a page, they can open the Amazon app, tap on the camera icon and scan the code. This will redirect them to a dedicated Cosmopolitan or Seventeen Magazine Amazon page where users can buy the product in the magazine.

The codes can direct users to extra content, as well as purchase pages. To prompt this interaction the codes will be accompanied by descriptions such as ‘scan to shop’ or ‘scan to watch an exclusive trailer’. The codes will be included in ad pages as well as editorial features. Confirmed partners so far include skincare companies Olay and Neutrogena, and make up brand Cover Girl. Users will also be able to access the dedicated Cosmopolitan and Seventeen Magazine online stores directly through Amazon’s See, Love, Shop page, which will be updated monthly to reflect the print publishing schedule.

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Nuro's driverless delivery vehicle is a prototype cargo hauling droid

Nuro, a California-based startup, has developed a working prototype of an autonomous delivery vehicle. The driverless microvan is designed as a local, short distance delivery and errand vehicle. The windowless prototype was filmed completing several closed course tests that simulate real world conditions like making left turns at an intersection, stopping for pedestrians and giving road space to cyclists.

The interior of the Nuro was designed to accommodate a range of delivery and transport tasks, from packages to takeout food to dry cleaning.

Nuro was founded in 2016 by two former Principal Engineers from Google’s self-driving car project, which has become Waymo. Along with the rest of their team, they’ve achieved a lot in a short span of time.

Download the full article here

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All the biggest news and highlights from CES 2018

Source: Wired

The world's biggest consumer tech event is back. Here's everything you need to know about the latest TV and gadget news from Las Vegas

The trade show is a yearly preview of the gadgets and landfill hitting shelves over the next 12 months; it's also a chance for companies to demonstrate some of their wackier concepts, which may never come to fruition. Here's a roundup of all the news and highlights from the big event so far.

Read the full article here

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Five trends that will change the media landscape in 2018

Source: Marketing Week

From publishers taking on the digital giants to streaming services stealing tactics from traditional broadcasters, Marketing Week predicts the media trends that will take shape this year.

Streaming services will take more cues from traditional media

Publishers will reassess their relationship with digital giants

Magazine publishers will up their focus on measurement

Broadcasters will battle disruptors with addressable TV

Digital out-of-home will get more personal

Read the article here

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Which consumer trends will reign around the world in 2018?

With a stronger global economy, in 2018 consumer expenditure is expected to grow at its strongest rate since 2011. Yet shifting consumer attitudes and behaviours will continue to cause disruption for business in 2018, with mobile technology and internet accessibility playing a key role in shaping these changes.

Download it here

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Ikea wants you to pee. If you’re pregnant, it will give you a discount

Swedish agency Åkestam Holst, Adweek’s International Agency of the Year for 2017, has been killing it with the Ikea work in recent years. And it starts out 2018 with a splash (sorry) by creating a magazine ad that women are encouraged to pee on.

Sounds a bit gross, and maybe it is—but there’s a fun twist. If you’re pregnant, peeing on the ad reveals a special discounted price on cribs, thanks to technology similar to that in pregnancy-test kits.

The ad is running in Amelia magazine, which the agency says is one of Sweden’s most influential magazines for women. Here’s a bit more from the agency:

In order to make the interactive functions of this ad work in reality, we had to make several technical advancements. The pregnancy test strip was used as a starting point, which relies on antibodies that bind to the pregnancy hormone hCG, resulting in a color change. For scaling up of this technique and adopting it to the physical format of a printed ad, Mercene Labs has used their experience in development of surface active materials for microfluidics and medical diagnostics. Careful selection of materials, together with a controlled capillary flow have been crucial for the success of this project. Technical advancements made during the work with this campaign have the potential to improve medical diagnostics.

This is definitely the coolest pee-based advertising since Animal Planet put urine-scented ads at the bottom of lampposts to attract dogs (whose owners then saw a larger ad at their own eye level promoting a dog award show).

Source: http://www.adweek.com/creativity/ikea-wants-you-to-pee-on-this-ad-if-youre-pregnant-it-will-give-you-a-discount-on-a-crib/

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Pizza Hut’s selfdriving delivery trucks with Toyota could be on the road by 2020

Uber and Amazon are also partners for the e-Palette

In the near future, be sure to tip your robot. Just don’t tip it over while it’s delivering you pizza.

Pizza Hut has been working with Toyota to develop ways to deliver personal pies via person-less transportation. One of those ways: Using the auto brand’s autonomous driving platform to operate an e-Palette, a self-driving vehicle that looks like a toaster oven with wheels.

“In our ongoing and relentless pursuit to own and define the modern pizza experience for our customers, we are focused on technology-based solutions that enable our team members and drivers to deliver even better customer experiences,” Pizza Hut U.S. president Artie Starrs said in a statement. “With Toyota, we are excited to be partnering with an undisputed leader in human mobility with a reputation for innovation, reliability and efficiency, as we define the pizza delivery experience of the future.”

This week during the Consumer Electronics Show, a model of the e-Palette has been on display at Toyota’s booth on the showroom floor at the Las Vegas Convention Center, where one side of the vehicle looped between various digital displays showing what it might look like to transport anything from pizzas and people to boxes and shoes.

The car is part of a broader partnership called the “mobility service business alliance,” which brings together a variety of brands including Uber, Amazon, Didi and Mazda to develop new ways of delivering goods and services. The e-Palette is still just a concept.

According to Sherhara Downing, a product specialist at Toyota, the company plans to have a working version ready for the 2020 Olympics in Japan. (And while cars won’t be on the road for a few more years, Pizza Hut and Toyota are already collaborating on ways to improve delivery communication this year by capturing data on driver patterns and behaviors.)

“It’s really about thinking about mobility in the future,” she told Adweek. “We all see it happening right now where everything is getting delivered to us, so now how does does technology play a role in actual delivery for human services?”

So how do the delivery companies prevent anyone from stealing from them? Downing said details haven’t been released yet.

“I love pizza, and I love stuffed crust, but I wouldn’t steal it if I knew it was going to somebody else.”

The timing of the announcement also comes just weeks after a self-driving pizza delivery car was a focal point in an episode of the most recent season of Black Mirror, which was released late last month. In the episode, a man is hit by the moving vehicle, which sets in motion a variety of other dystopian events. The show’s Twitter account then responded, naturally, with a less than cheery tweet likely only understood by anyone who’s seen the whole episode.

Source: http://www.adweek.com/digital/pizza-huts-self-driving-delivery-trucks-with-toyota-could-be-on-the-road-by-2020/

[3istrategy]

How Twitter celebrated The Last Jedi in style with real-time billboards

Source: Adweek

Disney teamed up with Twitter to plaster fan tweets across giant billboards in real time.

From 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Dec. 15, the 90-foot digital screens at Toronto Eaton Center in Canada flashed promo images features featuring characters from The Last Jedi, along with real-time messages pulled from the social media site. From 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., billboards in New York City’s Times Square and Bryant Park did the same.

As of Friday morning, even before the ads launched, some 2 million tweets had mentioned the film, according to Twitter. (The images featured in this article are mockups created in advance of the campaign.)

It’s far from the first time a marketer has toyed with billboards that respond to online input. In 2015, a Times Square digital poster for Coca-Cola shared fun facts about fans’ names, as triggered by their tweets. And back in 2011, Domino’s infamously gave Times Square billing to real-time customer reviews—both good and bad, sourced from its website—about its pizza deliveries, as part of its prostrating transparency push.

Disney and Twitter, though, are smart to tie the buy to a major time-specific event, capitalizing on the substantial social buzz around the launch. The Last Jedi raked in $450 million in total box office revenue its first weekend—the second best opening of all time, behind 2015’s The Force Awakens.

Toronto-based startup DIVE Networks, which helps businesses create custom real-time broadcasts to appear on office TVs and other screens, as well as billboards, helped bring the campaign to life.

More info: http://www.adweek.com/creativity/how-twitter-celebrated-the-last-jedi-in-style-with-real-time-billboards/

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The Drum - CES 2018

Three trends for marketers to watch for

Technology has always played an important role as a utility in our lives – whether that be functional, for entertainment, or as just plain novelty. But the success of voice assistants (especially the Amazon Echo Dot, which was the highest-selling product over Christmas) is an early indicator of the shifting nature of consumer technology.

Read in the link below the full article:

http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2018/01/09/ces-2018-three-trends-marketers-watch

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Most Contagious 2018

Welcome to Most Contagious. The annual review of how important shifts from one year are turning into the biggest opportunities for the next

From the analysis of the direction and speed of change happening across technology, consumer culture and marketing, Contagious has identified a series of potential areas that brands can use to their advantage to succeed in 2018. We’ve also partnered with The Economist’s The World in 2018 report to provide a glimpse of the political and economic landscape in which your brands will have to operate.

Download the full report here.

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ALIBABA - THE ULTIMATE TRY-BEFORE-YOU-BUY EXPERIENCE FOR CAR SHOPPERS

Source: Contagious

Vending machines enable test-drives via Taobao

Alibaba has announced the launch of giant vending machines designed to streamline the automotive sales experience. The aim is make it easier for customers to browse, research, and ultimately purchase vehicles on their smartphones, while also providing a hassle-free way to enable test drives as a seamless part of the process.

To get started, the customer uses Alibaba’s Taobao app to scan a car on the street that they’re interested in buying. The app will recognise the vehicle’s make and model and prompt the user to select a colour: if the car is available, the user can schedule a test drive by uploading some basic information and providing a selfie to confirm their eligibility.

To qualify, users must be Alibaba Super Members and also have a score above 700 points on the company’s credit-scoring system, Zhima.

The next stage is to visit the ‘Super Test-Drive Centre’, as the vending machines are called, where their ID will be confirmed using facial recognition and the selfie provided earlier, and their car will automatically be retrieved. The user than has three days to test-drive the car, at which point they can choose to finalise their purchase through the app, or opt to try out another vehicle instead.

While users can only test-drive each model once, they will be allowed to try out up to five cars during the first two months of the program when it launches in January 2018. Payment plans will also be on offer as an integral part of the service, deftly looping-in Alibaba’s financial services to the purchase process.

[3istrategy]

TOOLKIT 2018: HOW BRANDS CAN RESPOND TO THE YEAR'S BIGGEST CHALLENGES

WARC's Toolkit 2018 report outlines the key challenges facing brands in the year ahead, and guidance on how to meet them.

WARC's Toolkit 2018 survey cited customer experience (CX) as a 'digital transformation' priority for 2018, meaning a growing focus on customer journey mapping, and rising investment in experience optimisation technology.

Voice is now emerging as an important new interface between consumers and their devices, and the combination of voice and AI is opening up a new frontier for brand-building.

2018 will be pivotal to the development of digital, as the current drive for transparency continues; viewability and digital measurement is the number one issue faced by brands.

Data – and, in particular, data management – will be a major brand concern in the year ahead, partly because of new regulations coming into force, but also because of a broader push by brands to take control of their many data sources

Download it here

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PSFK - Forecast Z

A must-have manual for brands to understand and engage with the next class of consumers, PSFK’s Forecast Z report decodes the shifting priorities, values and behaviors of Generation Z

Welcome to the Gen Z reality—a new wave of influence that’s transforming society and business practices, approaches and mindsets.

Gen Z are purpose-driven, independent innovators, designing new methods, growing ideas and developing products. Their minds are set on change, upheaval, transformation and breakthrough—whether it’s norms, expectations, standards, definitions and beyond. To them, relevance does not equal ‘likes’; instead, they value the new and unique. While they aspire to live a beautiful and luxurious life, despite knowing they’ll have to work hard to attain it. To them, the challenge is fun— just a video game. Gen Z grew up traversing across virtual worlds on planetary sites like Webkinz, tending to their digital gardens and working long hours playing games to earn KinzCash. The grandchildren of Second Lifers and the second generation to the original Sims, GenZ is accustomed to easily accessible information and convenient mobility, living in fearless comfort in the open realm of Web 2.0. Digitally-born and turned ON in the pivotal time of the Connected Age, these kids are eager and passionate to solve, overcome and make positive change happen. Gen Z are both creators and born players in the game of Life. Collaboration-oriented, members of Gen Z want to work together with peers and brands to create things— whether products or positive impact—to satisfy their purpose. Gen Z are resetting the rules of the game and redesigning expectations for the binary norms of society.

Confident and judgement-free, Gen Z wants to mobilize a collaborative community inspired to do good. To engage with Gen Z, brands must break away from binary norms, shift their identities and adapt to a new way of thinking, catering to real humans and their needs. By leveling their platforms, companies can welcome this new wave of consumers wholeheartedly to gain their trust. They must learn to collaborate with them, along with listening to and supporting their ideas.

Download it here

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JWT - The future 100

Welcome to the Future 100 2018, our snapshot of the year ahead and the most compelling trends, themes and phenomena to keep on your radar.

2018 looks set to be the year in which 5G and augmented reality (AR) drive massive change in our interactions with the internet—we’ll be able to shop from our cars and visualize furniture in our home before deciding to buy it. And, rather than being described as “the future” at tech conferences, this will happen en masse. Brands and marketing are navigating an increasingly sophisticated consumer landscape where they are assessed on the nuances of their visual language, the diversity of their representation, 360-degree ethics and complete transparency. Finally, and rather excitingly (for me, certainly), we are moving further into a post-hipster world—or at least, into that world’s grown-up iteration. In 2017 we charted the Xennials, the 30-45-year-old microgeneration caught between the core millennial and generation X groups. Travel, food, drink, beauty and tech brands need to come to grips with this group’s expectations, as its net worth is set to more than double over the next 10 years. This year's report covers all these topics—and more. Enjoy!

Download it here

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Prosumer Report: iLife

In this report, we seek to explore our current relationship with technology, our hopes and fears regarding artificial intelligence, and our willingness to sacrifice privacy for efficiency. The study reveals that while most of us love the conveniences and capabilities afforded by our new gadgets and

With every passing year, technological advances are reaching more godlike dimensions—enabling humans to move about, communicate, and heal ourselves in previously unimaginable ways. As new technologies and applications arise, how will we cope with the effects of their power? What price will we pay for cheating death, creating life, and genetically altering living beings—including ourselves? As we spend more time alone and in virtual worlds, will what divides us grow more powerful than what unifies us? With this study, we seek to understand people’s perceptions and expectations of various aspects of technology in order to gain a clearer glimpse of what is to come.

Download the full report here

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Spotify 2018 Goals

Music streaming giant once again plunders its user data for an outdoor campaign

Following the success of its Thanks 2016. It’s Been Weird campaign, Spotify has created another out-of-home effort with its user data. This year’s campaign, 2018 Goals, saw the brand, once again, put a funny spin on streaming data. The outdoor ads featured straplines such as: ‘Deliver burns as well as the person who streamed “Bad Liar” 86 times the day Sean Spicer resigned’ and ‘Be as loving as the person who put 48 Ed Sheeran songs on their “I Love Gingers” playlist’. Created by Spotify’s in-house creative team, the campaign features 70 artists and is being deployed across 17 markets. The billboards are also location specific, featuring artists that, according to Spotify’s data, are popular in that city/area. The campaign also includes cut-out billboards in New York, LA and Miami, which have been designed as social media fodder. People can take pictures with their heads poking through holes in the cut-outs and share them on social media.

[3istrategy]

Why a digital news outlet chose to publish a hardback book, and what that means for the future of content

While the rest of the digital publishing world was committing to its ‘pivot to video’, news website Quartz published a book. The hardcover creation, The Objects that Power the Global Economy, is based around 10 physical objects that have impacted, and will continue to impact, different sections of the world’s economy. ‘And each object is an entry point into stories about a larger industry,’ says Quartz’s special projects editor Lauren Brown, who co-led the project with visual culture editor Caitlin Hu.

Read the full paper here.