Ready Player One

In Ernest Cline’s novel, “Ready Player One” the reader is transported to a dystopic vision of the distant future. In it, expansive virtual worlds have become so immersive, people are rarely to be found walking around in the polluted, crowded and resource depleted real world. Spielberg is attached to direct but there’s not even a release date yet.

In a rare case of life not just imitating art, but beating it to the punch, multiple VR headsets are set to hit the shelves by 2016. Facebook owned, Oculus Rift, HTC’s Vive in cooperation with Valve (Which of all the teasers vids I saw had the one that got me most excited.) And PlayStation with it’s Project Morpheus system which will operate on the PS4 platform.

Dev kits are already available for many of these. Oculus is promised on shelf by Q1 of 2016. The last build featured two 5 inch OLED displays with a 960x1080 resolution and 75 hz refresh. HTC hasn’t confirmed a date yet. But likely in the same time frame with a 1080x1200 resoloution and 90 hz refresh.

The implications for advertisers are as mindblowing as the technology itself. So it’s never too early for us to start thinking about how to craft stories in free-roaming 3D space.

In the VR core discussion, the first step was to talk camera. Understanding how that works gives us some valuable clues on how to story build in this environment. There are many players. But nobody quite as far as along with a soup-to-nuts offering as Palo Alto startup, Jaunt.

As the picture suggests, there is no camera man. He/she would be clearly visible to the viewer. There’s also no relensing opportunities. There is no close-up. Which is one of the first adjustment storytellers have to adjust to. An so, in the order they were delivered to me, here are few tips for storytelling in VR World.

1)   Story. In VR World, story is present in the act of the viewer doing things rather than us (as storytellers) telling them things. Think of yourself as more of a guide than an author.

2)   It’s helpful to cede control. You can’t be all Type A about what your viewer does. Prepare for their willfulness to contradict your tour guideness at times.

3)   Your viewer will focus on the stupidest details. They’ll obsess over stuff you don’t want them to. The implication here is to be cautious about what to include. Superfluous stuff could lead to a rabbit hole that will ultimately lead to disengagement with the experience you’ve created. Focusing your viewers attention is, for that reason, very important.

4)    Don’t put your viewer between actors. People don’t experience the world that way.

5)   Tell your viewer up-front if they are existent or non-existent in the world. It saves a lot of frustration. This will help you answer production questions like whether the actors will look right into the camera or not.

6)   Just in terms of mental construct, it’s helpful to think of it as REVERSE theater in the round, where the audience is on stage and the seating portion is where the actors live.

Another interesting permutation could prover a more successful and ultimately useful challenger to the full VR model.  Two companies, Magic Leap and Microsoft with their project called Hololens,

are working on headsets that, in very broad terms, are like Google Glass on Steroids.  

Magic Leap uses a digital lightfield technology to blend real world images and created images in an indistinguishable way. Which is both cool and eerie.  

Microsoft calls what they do “Mixed Reality” (as opposed to VR). Not clear if the technologies are similar. But what does seem clear upfront is that Mixed Reality leans toward productivity and life stuff where VR is a trippy, immersive escape more inclined toward gaming and entertainment.

Fame.

A lot of discussion this year at SXSWi about the changing nature of fame in a digital world.

But first, this little chesnut from decades past. Yes, it’s the opening credits to the T.V. series "Fame" 

NOTE: When attempting to talk to Gen-X’ers, it will bring you enormous street cred to be able to recite these lyrics. Extra points if you can tap a rhythmically tap a wooden cane like Debbie Allen in the credit sequence.

Believe it or not, this is what fame looked like in 1982. Thirty-three years later, the concept of “fame” looks radically different. 

When asked about who they regard as celebrity, this survey published in "Variety" demonstrated  that Millenials overwhelmingly favored the Youtube famous over the Hollywood famous.

Astonishing.

To call  these Youtube tyros ‘Micro-influencers’ seems short-sighted at best. They’re trouncing the Jennifer Lawrence’s and Seth Rogen’s of the world amongst this demographic, at least. Pound for pound Smosh, The Fine Brothers,  or Pewdiepie  look to be a much better investment for marketers.

Marketers are already reaching outside of their early successes in leveraging micro-Influencers. Mostly within the social media platforms they already occupy. But in an interesting twist, HP (Courtesy of 180LA and Niche) has created a very clever parternship with successful viner’s to market 2-in-1’s. Check it out here.

What’s nice here is how the physicality of the 2-in-1 lends itself to the medium and talent pretty perfectly. The spin is exporting it back to T.V. Treating Vine not just as a platform, but as source material for other mediums.

Not too surprisingly, as Millenials begin to raise families, their influencers are following suit. The "Shay-tards" (Political Correctness is no longer a thing, right?) are arguably one of the first-families of Youtube and boast north of 3 million subscribers and counting.

Also notable here is "Batdad"  who recycles the premise of impersonating Christian Bale’s Batman to startle and annoy his kids for a cool 200k followers and over 11 million hits on his most visited edit.

The last few years have seen a lot of brands go gentle. Last year at Cannes, BBDO’s David Lubars spearheaded a conversation called "Nice Is The New Black"  

His key theme was how the Dove’s, P&G Mom’s, etc. were part of a fast and growing trend of social consciousness fueling brand success. 

Not surprisingly, micro-Influencers seem to be keying on social themes as well and achieving a measure of fame that’s almost accidental.

Take, for example, clean water, which has been a persistent concern among the socially minded as of late.  The clean water moviement is elevating some of the most unlikely candidates to prominence. In a pretty brilliant maneuver, Charity Water has pioneered a growing trend to donate a calendar event for clean water fundraising. At last count, over 9 million dollars has been generated by donating an event we all have as a right of merely exisiting—our birthday.

A nine-year old named Brendan has achieved great success for the cause of clean water by marketing t-shirts with art work of his own wonderfully primitive designs printed on front.

It’s hard to say whether nice-vertising will experience a backlash. Trends seldom last forever. And the wonderfully cynical triumph of Harvey Nichols "I Spent It On Myself" could be a sign of things to come.

In close, let me pass along a few basic principles pulled from core discussions here at SXSWi on the subject of new media fame and how to work with micro-influencers.

1)     Keep It Deadly Simple. Micro-influencers typically base out on a pretty narrow and defined principles. Pewdiepie is a goofy, blurted, realtime gaming narrative. Brendan is all about getting clean water to Africa through t-shirts he designs. There isn’t a lot of the blur. And the slant is easy to absorb.

2)     The Right Influencer for The Right Job. It’s all about using the MI in the right way. Not simply as a distributor. There’s always going to be the temptation to reduce it to simple economics. (The highest amount of followers at the lowest price point wins.) But the prevailing wisdom is that it’s about matching the right influencer with the right brand. 10k of the right people outweight a million of the wrong ones.

3)     Have An Idea. I know it sounds obvious. MI’s don’t want to be shown a script that they read. Ultimately, they’ll want to concept an idea and sell it to you. The middle ground is a big idea. Even though it will be yours in origin,  they’ll be able to plug their brand into it in an authentic way while enjoying some authorship as you go.

4)    Think Like An MI. Like any new marketing device, it’s tempting to want to jump in without understanding the nature of what it is. Try to challenge yourself to isolate how MI’s arrived at their idea and, as importantly, why it succeeds. Understanding these variables will go a long way toward helping you hit your target while avoiding the stigma of an outsider just trying to buy their way in.

Enchanted Objects – The Next Wave of The Web

The Internet of Things has always felt like an impulse-without-logic category. It reminds you of Jeff Goldblum’s quote from “Jurassic Park” on the ethics of making dinosaurs—“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they should.” So we can put a chip in literally everything. Should we? And to what end? Nobody seemed to asking the important question of “why” when it comes to IOT.

Like a lot of things, our ability to achieve something often races ahead. Ahead of what? Typically usefullness. But there are things beyond pure utility that stimulate adoption. Things like story.

And that’s where an emerging subset of IOT is getting traction. A subset called “Enchanted Objects”. Simply put, Enchanted Objects are really just connected objects with a magical context. Where technology infuses ordinary things with a bit of magic to create a more satisfying interaction and evoke an emotional response. And nobody is more on the forefront of enchanted objects than David Rose who is head of the “Tangible Media Group” at MIT.

Rose is a pretty interesting guy. Both for the things he creates. And the things he bemoans. Things like cell phones.

“They’re not doing a lot for you unless you’re constantly interacting with them,” he offers. “These devices are like small children—They require constant attention, feedback and interaction.”

Rose’s world is already filled with these objects. Remember “Sting” the sword from “Lord of The Rings” that would glow blue when Orcs are near. Rose has rigged an umbrella with a handle that glows blue when rain is in the forecast. It’s really the frictionless interplay between story and utility. Here are just a few of the other things he’s working on:

-Cutlery and condiments that measure your eating habits.

-A teleporting cabinet. Where you open a very analog hinged wooden door and a screen aut0-skypes a preset destination.

-Talking pill bottles.

-Curtains you open by waving your hands.

-An orb that glows when a stock you own goes up in value.

Part of Rose’s idea is that story and narrative come through substance. Screens are ultimately screens. But there’s something infinitely more satisfying about mixing the modern notion of chip embeds with wood or cork or stone. These substances are age old, so filling them with responsive capacity makes the experience seem all the more magical.

Also interesting is transmedia play or transmedia storytelling.

Typically this transmediation just bounces between screens and more analog technologies tied to them (Like landline telephones). But pair a smartphone with a toy or stuffed animal with a chip in it, and transmedia play seems ripe for innovators to go nuts.

Feelings_Whoa_Whoa_Whoa_Feelings.

Every year at SXSWi, there’s the collective intake of breath while we wait for the next quantum leap to be announced. There was pre-festival buzz around Meerkat this year. But that came and went weeks before any of us got here. Periscope made it’s debut. But even those apps (as evidence of a quantum leap) are pretty thin. Particularly when you consider completely serviceable apps like Ustream have been around for years. So it’s only natural, that we start to look inward. Not so much discussing sudden shifts. But instead measuring the gradual effect the digital world is starting to have on our emotional state as we sink deeper into it.

2016 will mark the commercial launch of virtual reality. Hold on to something. Because this will be a media hailstorm. But what’s already interesting is how as we deepen our immersion in the digital world, behavorial responses are starting to surface. Here are some of the learnings and themes that surfaced around that this year:

1)     Digital Avatars. There is mounting evidence that digital avatars aren’ the firewall we presume they are. Generally, users will be more honest and therefore more vulnerable behind the protection of an avatar. When avatars are violated in virtual space, it can be emotionally damaging. Behavorial scientists are beginning to see symptoms in actual users that are indistinguishable from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when they’re avatars are subjected to mistreatment in virtual systems.

2)     Rapid Identity Shifting. We’re being conditioned to shift rapidly between our digital identies. In a few minutes, a user can shuttle between applications that will change their role from seductress to sister to employee (for example). Two decades ago it would’ve seemed schizophrenic to shed one personality for another so quickly.  But technology is teaching us to exchange one role for the next in record time.

3)     Nature Rift. As we spend more time in digital space, it’s drawing us away from nature. Generally, people who spend more time in nature (however you want to define that) are happier. So it’s not surprising that VR sees a role for itself here. Eden River, is an early though interesting entrant in the VR “let’s get back to nature and be happy” space. Though it lacks the immersion of viewing it through Oculus Rift, here’s a Youtube version.

4)    2015. The Year of Mood.  Given the sudden interest in the behavorial impact of technology, it’s not surprising to see a word get dusted off that had it’s first big run in the 70’s. Mood. The research linked below suggests that matching the mood of a viewer is more likely to persuade than mismatching. Which has fascinating implications provided we can guess or predict what a viewer’s mood is like. Check it out here.

By reading voice and facial expressions, Toyota’s new FV-2 concept will assess the mood of the driver, displaying different exterior colors (like a mood ring) and making adjustments to effectively get the driver to a good emotional space (i.e. not road rage). 

In general, technology (including wearables) is getting better at reading our emotional state. Which puts us at an interesting crossr0ad. On the one hand, the time may come where we can quickly assess the best time to do anything. The best time to run 5 miles. The best time to write a poem. The best time to bake a cake. We may soon be able to self diagnose optimal times to do everything with the greatest possibility of success. But there’s a bit of an Orwellian twist, as employers may soon have the ability to embed subtle biometric readers in at-work technology that could quietly sift and classify employees as behavorially desirable or undesirable. 

And We're Back

It only took four years. But we're back. We'll be updating the MB@SXSW blog with all the latest observations, trends and gadgetry from the 2015 SXSWi. 

The Game Layer 2

The unsettling part about games is they tend to get dull over time. Games have a lifespan. So adding game components to a brand bring the challenge of constant refresh.

Through careful curation some game-based brands are managing to sustain and grow play. One hears a lot about Nike +. And how they've managed to continually reinvent the mechanics of competititon and notification.

In theory, there are 4 basic tactics to sustain affection for your brand-based game mechanic 1) Challenge 2) Conflict/Choices 3) A feedback loop and 4) Rewards and Goals.

CHALLENGE. Think about coupons as a marketing device. Synonymous with hot rollers and fuzzy slippers. But Old Navy found an interesting new wrinkle in the game layer. Their idea was to hide coupons on their site. Some, remarkably good. ($60 or $100 off!). The trick was that you really had to scour the site to find them. Additionally, the highly valuable coupons were limited in number. They go live at about 2 a.m. meaning people really had to camp out to capture the top notch coupons. Another company game-layered their sign-up form by recording the shortest time it had been accomplished in (16 seconds) then challenged users to beat that record. There's also a set completion phenomena. Basically an impulse baked into our DNA salad that compels us to finish a task with a set completion element.

CONFLICT/CHOICES.

Dribbble is a show and tell website for creatives. The concept is spartanly simple: Take a screenshot of whatever you are working on right now and send it in. Everyone starts as a spectator. This is sort of like being a "read only" member. Spectators can upload screen shots to their profile. And if other players find them interesting enough, they may get drafted as a "player". Players can contribute. But have a maximum of 24 uploads per month that do NOT roll over. The rankings are crowdsourced. So it is to every player's advantage to be very cautious about what they choose to upload. Here limited choice compels the player to be parsimonious about how often to upload. Upload too often, and you burn all your chances to climb the rankings for a month.

FEEDBACK LOOP

Fitbit is a clip-on digital pedometer that automatically updates whenever you pass within 15 feet of a wifi station in your home. It can track your physical activity, health objectives, even how well you're sleeping. Scroll through it's statistical record keeping and get all the up-to-the minute playback on your progress you'd expect. But then there's something you wouldn't expect. A LED digital flower that lengthens in stem and leaf as you exercise more. Almost dumbly sweet yet very addictive, the flower is something you nurture through your own exercise. Your activity linked in a tight feedback loop to a symbol of thriving and growing.

REWARDS & GOALS

Rewards are the most expected game reinforcement strategy. When consumers play our brand game, we give them stuff as bribery for involvement. But stuff is only one layer. Interestingly, it is also the least motivating. Status, access and power all tend to rank higher in motivating engagement than the "complimentary tote bag". They also cost far less. The price of entry here tends to be in crafting an experience that feels and plays like a game.