Andy Hood, Head of Emerging Technologies at AKQA, says we need to think about new tech in terms of the value it creates, and explains what brands can learn from start-ups to drive innovation
Digital marketing, it’s sometimes said, is the place where art and science meet. That could explain why, as marketers, we’re so fond of the dramatic noun: transformation, innovation – on occasion even revolution. But, says Andy Hood, Head of Emerging Technologies at AKQA, for all the extraordinary opportunities presented by new tech, there remains the danger that we end up deploying it for its own sake, rather than ensuring it meets real business needs.
Marketing’s objective now, says Hood, isn’t simply to create great images, videos and copy. It’s to produce “new digital products and services that market brands through the value they bring, either to consumers or to the business itself. This is fundamentally a different thing.”
Sturgeon’s Law
Not so long ago we might have encountered one genuinely game-changing piece of technology every few years. Now, thanks to the explosion of start-ups and crowd-funding platforms like Kickstarter, there could be a new one every six months. Even the titanic corporates are keeping a close eye on the start-up community and – as we shall see – learning from the little guys who aren’t afraid to fail.
But, says Hood, it’s also important for marketers to keep hold of their critical faculties. Back in 1951 the sci-fi writer Theodore Sturgeon coined what’s come to be known as Sturgeon’s Law: “90 per cent of everything is crap.” (He was responding to an accusation that most of the writing in his own genre was, well, crap.) In fact, says Hood, “I think he was being slightly conservative. You could probably throw another nine in there. That’s not being critical; we know that in all walks of life, in all genres, most of the stuff sits at the bottom. We love the stuff we love because it rises above that.” Modern marketing’s mission, he explains, is to avoid implementing technology arbitrarily – making use of it just because it’s there – and to create something of genuine value.
Putting tech to the test
Consider, for example, beacon technology. Armed with the appropriate apps, says Hood, AKQA’s team hit the high street for a spot of field testing. What they discovered wasn’t promising: student vouchers were sent to a single woman in her late thirties who had already specified that she was not a student. Offers didn’t reach the team until they’d left the shops and gone home.
“We don’t mind too much if the technology is glitchy,” says Hood. “That’s an occupational hazard of working with new tech. What matters is where the thought is coming from. We have the ability with this technology to unify our online and offline identities. We can enable brands to understand who and where we are so they can provide personalised experiences. But where are the uses of that data which enable us to treat a physical space in an entirely new and dynamic way? Right now, we just spam people with vouchers.”
Oculus Rift is another piece of ground-breaking kit, and one even Theodore Sturgeon would probably have appreciated.
“This is the closest thing to what I wanted to work with when I was in college,” says Hood. “It’s amazing. Oculus are a company rooted in gaming – some of them are legends of gaming technology – and the Oculus Rift has largely been seen as a piece of experiential technology. It provides all the thrills and the sense of escapism that you get from virtual reality experiences. But VR is so much more than that. The presence and the physical connection you feel with an object that’s rendered properly in VR are tangible. Which makes me think that VR isn’t just about thrills and escapism. It’s actually about access, whether that’s to something far away, something you can’t afford, something that doesn’t exist yet or which the laws of physics prevent. This is very powerful. Once access becomes the guiding principle, you can start to apply VR to all kinds of solid, functional problems that have nothing to do with thrills and escapism. At that point you’ve got something that can really add value.”
The same applies to Google Glass, says Hood. “The reason you feel awkward wearing Google Glass is because nobody else is. And the reason nobody else is, is because the number of killer applications that make this a must-have is very small. I can’t help thinking that it’s because a lot of the apps you do see focus on taking pictures and video. These are the low hanging fruit – the things people first do when they put Google Glass on. But we should look at the form of Google Glass, rather than the tech: the fact that it’s hands-free and voice controlled. There are a number of areas where this can be applied. Maybe not at street level – maybe in business. But we haven’t seen them yet, and that’s because we’re focusing on the obvious rather than thinking about the value.
“What we need to do with these technologies is take a step back and interrogate what they’re really for. And to do that we need a culture of experimentation in our organisations and the organisations we partner with. This means removing the formality that surrounds projects and enabling teams to take theories and ideas and put them quickly and cheaply into demonstrable execution that you can test and share, because the learnings are what success looks like here.”
Fail better
Start-up culture, notes Hood, has no fear of failure. In fact it embraces it. “Failing here doesn’t have the negative connotations it does elsewhere. Start-up culture speaks of needing to fail fast and fail often. We can do a lot by changing the language we use. If learning itself is a success metric, we can do these small experiments and demonstrate incremental success, rather than a series of small failures. This is much easier to build on.”
It’s a strategy the big boys in business – including IBM – have recognised, setting up their own labs and experimenting with new developments. But, stresses Hood, you need to do more than pay lip-service to the idea of a lab. This isn’t a playroom with a 3D printer, an Oculus Rift and a PS4 where staff can go and be made to feel like they’re on the cutting edge.
“It’s a process of continual experimentation, learning and collaboration. A lab is something to be shared with other organisations. We can’t understand how to apply emerging technologies to solve business problems and create new opportunities for consumers if we don’t understand the people who have those problems and the businesses that need to solve them. We need to be constantly, proactively looking at tech so we have these things ready when the opportunity presents itself.” The alternative leaves companies contributing pointlessly to the already deafening digital noise.
“Constant experimentation means we’re not just buying it and leaving it on the shelf but are using, developing, prototyping and understanding it to create our own unique point of view. Because it’s not really the technology that you apply to a business problem. It’s your point of view on the tech. That’s what enables you to use it in the right way.”
Finally, says Hood, ensure those experiments are open to everyone and share the insight. “You need to get your point of view across to the employees or the consumers who have these problems. Opportunities to use this tech can come from anywhere at any time. The most horrible thing is when you find out after the fact that there was an opportunity for just the insight and the tech you had, but because the people involved didn’t know, you missed it. This enables us not to do arbitrary things with new tech and pollute the place with stuff that exists for its own sake, rather than adding value. Arbitrary really is the enemy of innovation.”
Andy Hood spoke at the Figaro Digital Marketing Conference, November 2014. This feature appears in Issue 23 of Figaro Digital magazine, January 2015.
Article by Jon Fortgang