David Carr of The New York Times wrote recently that Apple’s tablet would be nothing less than “the second coming of the iPhone, a so-called Jesus tablet that can do anything, including saving some embattled print providers from doom.”

The result, after the launch of this new piece of voodoo from the people at the forefront of technology has been a monumental disappointment. It seems to be no more than an electronic book, magazine or newspaper – with internet access and a few nice apps and a screen that will screw your eyes up in about 15 minutes!

What’s interesting is why some of us expected so much more from a new gadget. I suspect this is because for some people, technology has become a kind of religion. We may not believe in a God anymore, but just as 500 years ago the Spanish missionaries put shiny mirrors in churches to dazzle the Incas and draw them in – we still like to see shiny new things that fill us with awe.

We’re living in an age of change and upheaval – yet technology gives us the illusion of control, a sense of order. Pick up a smart phone or turn on your laptop and you have a reliable, dependable device that does whatever you tell it to do. And no wonder a lot of people in the media wanted to believe that a new device from Apple could stop the decline of our industry’s Newspapers and magazines. Both are struggling to adapt to the Internet, and no one has any idea what our business will look like when we get to the other side of this wrenching period. The iPad may very well be the answer …….. eventually. But not from day one – and not until you get one free when you sign up to a year’s subscription of …. whatever.

It says more about us and what we have come to expect from Apple than Apple itself. Yet Apple did not invent the MP3 player, and they where not the first to think of distributing music over the internet. What they did was make it ‘cool’. In a world where Apple only have a 5% share of the mobile market and about the same in home computing – I don’t think the iPad is the savior of the printed word. But its quite cool. Should have called it the iWant.

The only sector of marketing in the UK that has not gone into reverse in terms of spend has been digital, all other sectors have suffered to one degree or more. It’s clear that marketer’s consider digital to be an essential part of the marketing spend. Numerous brands are now thinking more carefully about how they develop their creative assets to work best in alternative video platforms such as mobile, podcasts and YouTube and less likely to jump straight into TV production without these elements being considered up-front.

The big story this year is the up-coming general election and how each political party conducts itself with digital and social media. The digital marketers here have really been wowed by the Obama campaign’s use of digital and in particular social networking to connect with voters. Everyone seems to be watching how the main political parties will conduct themselves. We are seeing a serious take up of smart phones and clients are very interested in what can be done through apps. Clients are seeing the benefits of mobile; they still rightly want to make sure it’s having a positive impact on both brand measures and sales.

John Kinder, Digital Managing Director

Online is the prefect testing ground of this theory for many brands to collaborate with individuals and communities who share a common passion.

Apple opened up the source to its iphone and now they can claim over 90,000 applications for the iphone, the majority of which have been developed by consumers for consumers. When Vodafone tried to do this internally with a team of over 500 developers they arrived after 1year of development with zero, that’s right zero applications for their Vodafone live service!

And more recently a company called Local Motors has built a car called the Rally Fighter which has been designed and specified purely from thousands of ordinary people, who happen to be car nuts, submitting ideas, plans and concepts to the company’s website. Those that came up with the best and most significant ideas won cash prizes. The whole venture has taken about 14 months and about $2m to take the car from a sketch to the finished item. And there are already more cars in the pipeline.

 But even though these are great examples of successful product developments, brand owners are still reticent to let go and try this approach, they cling to teams of researchers and business analysts to inform their strategies and plans ,yet increasingly consumer knowledge outweighs expert knowledge and has more relevance and saliency.

So why not collaborate with the end users, ask them what they want and how they want it and cut out the “middle man” and develop your new products at a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time and with a ready audience of buyers!

The time for a new product development model is upon us.

Chris Lovell, Group CEO

We started out about a month ago with Yelp. It’s an online service where uses review bars, restaurants and local services . So far, so what? But the iPhone version has a very cool little Easter egg call Monocle. Shake the iPhone three times and it appears.

It then uses the camera to overlay information over the real world as seen through the iPhone. Stand in the street and point the camera and details of bars and restaurant float over the real picture. Click one on-screen to see a review – and it’s not just big US cities, much of the UK is covered.

Think about that for a moment. You’re wondering where to eat – you could always Google it before you go out – but how much easier to just point your phone at down the street. In the time it takes you to read the menu in the window, you can see what past diners thought about their meal.

There’s a few similar one’s we’ve been playing with. One shows you which Underground line you’re above (more fun than useful) and a few that overlay tourism or historical information over buildings.

Thinking about it, you can see lots of applications here: could it tell me if the train or bus I’m looking at is going my way or show me how the landscape looked in Roman times? Could I point it at a street to see which bars any of my Facebook friends are in or give me a LinkedIn profile of people as I scan a room at a networking event.

From a PR perspective, it underlines the importance of monitoring the conversations that are happening about your business. For me, it also demonstrates the increasing importance of focusing on local relationships. There’s an opportunity here for PR support which is embedded within these localities and communities to develop and deliver content that is more relevant and engaging.

This overlaying of the real and online worlds give us the ability to use simple graphic devices to trigger 3D animations, sound and video that appear to be in the real world when viewed through a webcam or phone.

This is pretty mental. One of our favourite examples is the living Sasquatch. It’s a great marketing trick which is engaging people by giving them a star for their own videos. It works from a printed image which proved the real-world anchor point for the online animation.

But if you put the graphic on your iPhone, you get a Yeti you can work round with. Even more entertainingly, if you blow the graphic up, the animation scales with it. We’ve pretty much got it up to lifesize now – my next ambition is to have one in reception to greet people or sitting on the sofa next to them. Can’t see it in real life, but when you look up at the plasma screen, you’re sharing your seat with a Sasquatch.

This is already being used in advertising, predictably in technology and games, and the first AR magazine cover is very impressive. It’s real Harry Potter stuff – if you make this mobile so that the iPhone can do it, you could be scanning a whole shelf of magazines to see video or animation of their content. It’s going to bring a whole new meaning to pop-up book too.

Where else to we think we could use it?

It’s being used by product designers to see what their work looks like in situ. It would be very useful for, say, Ikea to launch an app which drops a piece of furniture into a room. Drop a logo sheet where you want your new furniture to be then look through the phone as assorted sofas appear to see which fits best. You could decide which car looks best on the drive, layout your garden or even try on clothes.

Or what about AR business cards? Print the anchor graphic on the reverse of your card so that when it’s viewed through a camera you pop out, standing on the card to introduce yourself. This is one we’re definitely working on.

It’s taking us in all sorts of directions and we’re working with our digital video team on lots of possible ideas.

How about virtual pets for kids with the anchor graphic on a keyring? Throw the keyring into the middle of the room and view it to see the pet appear (could even be modelled on their real pets). Or how about wallpaper covered in the graphics to make different works of art or photos appear? Video of your favourite live gig tied to the logo you wear on the band t-shirt or even tattoo.

The merging of real and online worlds present exiting opportunities for communications, engagement and marketing – we’ll keep you posted on where we take it next.

Matt Appleby, director, PR Wales
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