Category: Brand Evolution

TomTom is launching a free Online Route Planner. With this travelers can plan a route before leading and receive exact traveling and arrival times which take into account current and historical information regarding traffic flow during the day. HD traffic with 500 billion historical speed measurements of roads across the world is integrated too.

Brands are disconnecting from screens and enter the dialogue through every possible one. That dialogue goes on. Where a conversation ends on one screen, it continues on another. Currently for two screens (nagivational system and computer screen), soon for every screen you can imagine. You just call ‘TomTom’. You’re recognized immediately and the dialogue is continued. This is a nice example of this development.

T-Mobile offers business clients discounts and group discounts (Dutch) when they develop a long term relationship: the longer you're a client, the higher your discount. This loyalty discount can go up to 6%

It’ll be increasingly more difficult to get new customers in the medialandscape that’s developing. When it used to be the rule that it’s five times as difficult to get a new customer than it is to keep an existing one, this ratio is only going to get worse. Finding new customers is going to get increasingly more difficult. Because of this brands are forced to do their utmost to keep existing customers. With service, but also with price. This is a nice example.

Two iPhone application, Trein (Train) and iNap, will start to work together. Using Trein you can see up-to-date time timetables for your stations, you can look up disruptions and construction work and plan train journeys that are remembered. iNap wakes you up (gives you a signal when you reach your final destination). The integration means you only need to tell it your final destination and you'll get a signal when you need to get off or switch trains.

This is how the travel coaching brand is slowly shaped. Currently as an iPhone application, but soon you’ll plan your journey from every possible screen. And if you need to take a cab ride too, you’ll be helped with that too. Whether the brand is called ‘Trein’, ‘iNap’ or something else, eventually there’ll be a buddy for traveling from A to B across the whole world. A buddy we’ll be happy to pay for. That’s the big development.

At EZ My Styling, a Japanese company, consumers can upload a photo and then try out different hair styles.

Ever more brands are starting to personalize their advice. Eventually we’ll have an exact 3D replica of ourselves and we can try all sorts of possible hairstyles, clothes and accessories. We can make our virtual self walk, exactly how we walk, and then ask our friends how it looks. While you’re lying on the couch. This is an example in that direction.

Social business brand LinkedIn makes searching for people easier. As soon as you type a letter, the names from your network appear automatically. If you make a typo (for example when you search for 'Edwin van Lun' LinkedIn offers the suggestion: Are you perhaps looking for 'Erwin van Lun', 'Edwin van Loon' or 'Edwin van Lit'?)

Brands do everything they can to understand our language. And just like in a human dialogue, half a word is enough for them. People also often don’t hear half of what’s being said, but our brain glue everything together seamlessly. Slowly we’re learning to automate this. Soon well just call to the car ‘Call Vincent, please!’, that’ll be enough. If there’s any doubt about which Vincent the return question ‘Which Vincent?’ will come automatically. This shows nicely that brands are also starting to get to know our personal network better and keep this in mind in their communication.

VisibleBody allows people to travel through the human body in 3D. The demo starts with the skeleton and then allows you to turn layers on and off separately, like the digestive track, the nervous system, organs, lungs or blood vessels.

There are two developments in this example: a media development and a brand development:

• The media development shows that, in the virtual world that’s being created, we map everything that walks on Earth (in general: exists, drives, moves etc, and also what’s beyond that). Third parties will later be able to add layers to this model (although it’s not yet supported by creator Argosy Medical). For example, photos, documentaries about operations, exceptions or treatment methods. And of course: commercial entities that offer services to the body. Don’t just think of surgeons, but also of masseuses, physiotherapists or beauty specialists.
• At the same time a possible health brand is being created. This type of brand studies health, knows everything about it, what’s for sale in the world, and know everything about it. This is a generic model of a human being, but soon it’ll be exactly our body. And every time a change occurs (for example, we start to stand differently thanks to a visit to the physiotherapist) that’s taken into account. Or a new filling in our teeth. We can see the impact of every change immediately. And our life expectancy. What would happen to our body if we lost ten pounds? That’s the domain of health coaching brands and this could be a start for VisibleBody.

Restaurantsite Urbanspoon now has an UrbanSpoon iPhone application which recommends a random restaurant in your immediate area by shaking the iPhone. To make this possible the application uses the GPS and movement sensors that are a standard part of the iPhone. This lets you experience a sense of surprise by a random choice.

A few developments are hidden in this.
Firstly, brands are going into a dialogue with consumers and use their eyes, ears and antennae to do this. It’s not just about what the consumer clicks, types are presses, but also what’s said, how they look and how they move. It’s all feedback in the conversation and brands are slowly learning to deal with this. It might seem like a gadget now, but soon all brands will do it.

Secondly, there’s another trend hidden in this. Coaching brands, new brands that can find anything across the whole world, can surprise the consumer. But then knowing what the consumer doesn’t want. That’s the next step: that you can exclude what you don’t want. Just like with a master chef: just do something as long as it doesn’t contain blue cheese or coriander. This is also true for music, for media, for vacation destinations, for books.

iNap is an iPhone application that wakes you up when you reach your destination. The application costs $0.99 and is available in the Apple Store.

Brands will guide us, coach us. Later on we won’t have to pay attention to anything. When we wake up on the train, we’ll be told whether we have to get off at the front or the back of the carriage, which elevator we need to take, and that there’s a cab waiting for us at the door. It’ll eventually go so far that we can give our coat to a robot who’ll store it for us. The navigational system is an effective example of today. These are useful successors. But the real work has yet to come. Fodder for Pamper Planet.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, better known as MGM, will be the first big movie studio which places 'full-length' movies on YouTube. Currently the movies are older ones and episodes of television series from the past which still have to be converted into a format suitable for YouTube. Viewers can watch these movies for free thanks to advertising.

Currently for free, but soon we’ll gladly pay for movies. Because with paying customers YouTube can finally do what it was created to do: entertaining people. And with all possible content ever created. That’s why YouTube is a home entertainment coaching brand in the making. Currently predominantly on the PC, but in a few years 95% of YouTube’s content will be watched on the big screen in the living room.

LinkedIn, a business social network, advises people with events. By now LinkedIn 'reads' over 8000 events worldwide. You can select events based on industry, data and (traveling) distance. You can see who organizes the event, who's speaking and leave comments. Speakers get to see the event on their profile too. You can also see which colleagues and contacts are going. That might be the most important.

People are herd animals; they do what others do. And they let themselves be led especially by their immediate environment. That’s true for both less-educated and well-educated people. That’s just how we work. Here, LinkedIn uses this principle flawlessly. Slowly, LinkedIn seems to be turning into a real career coaching brand: a brand that coaches you with your personal development. News, books, events, LinkedIn has it all. Soon LinkedIn will start to help students with their career start. Then high school students with their follow-up choices. Currently in only a few languages, but soon exactly in the language you need, that helps you best. This is a step in that direction.

Wikitude gives you real time information about the display of your cell phone when you're pointing it at something. This is possible because the GPS knows where you are. Anyone who spots an interesting castle, for example, will be shown when it was built.

The media-evolution is becoming more and more clear. We can ask questions with everything we see. Just to whom? The traveling guide may be able to tell you everything about the history of your environment, but a brand that knows everything about nature might know exactly what you can eat and what you can’t, or which animals live there and are threatened with extinction. And yet other types of brands can tell you what you’d like to do around there. No one brand knows everything about you, know your interests in every area like the back of your hand. This is how multiple brands are created, multiple coaching brands, brands we can ask questions. This is a very clear step in that direction.

My Health Coach for Nintendo DS combines a virtual, personal fitness trainer and a professional nutritionist. Your movements are measured by a pedometer. You connect it to your Nintendo DS and keep track of your daily movements. You create your own profile based on age, weight, length, body movement, etc. Based on your BMI and lifestyle a personal program is put together for you.
Then you fill in your own goal which ten training sessions help you reach. Based on this data the program also supplies tips for a balanced diet.
To read your goal, you only need to play 10-15 minutes a day and to keep the game fun you can set yourself challenges. For example: 'don't use elevators or escalators all day long' or 'sit in the Lotus-position for 15 minutes' or 'eat two bowls of vegetable soup', etc. The result of the exercises and eating habits are converted to graphs. This allows you to see whether your lifestyle has really changed after a few weeks or months.
My Health Coach has a one time fee of €39,99.

Now all we need to do is connect and synchronise everything. Soon you’ll hear directly in your ear piece which movements are good for you right at that moment. Get up! Health brands are with you all day long, and, dosed, know exactly the right way to coach you.

LinkedIn, a business social network, is integrating people's reading lists. For each book you can indicate 'I want to read it', 'I'm reading it now' and 'I want to read it'. You can also indicate whether you're using the Kindle, Amazon's e-paper device.

In a next step you’ll connect your Amazon account to the LinkedIn account. Then the books you’ve purchased will appear automatically. When you indicate that you’ve read it, Amazon will ask for your review, which will then appear on Amazon.com and, more importantly, will be shown prominently to your business partners. This allows LinkedIn to help you more with books that help develop your career. This is a step in that direction.

Using M&M Custom Print you can now make your own M&M's. You can choose from 22 colours, add text and even print photos.

We’re leaving the standard product ever further behind. Now that the media allows brands to listen to the customer again (like they did before the mass production era) the marketing P of Product will also be personal again. This is an example of this.

The 62,500 readers of the Dutch digital magazine Goede Tijden have a chance of hearing their own ringtone composition in Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden. Readers are given all creative freedom: they can compose, sing, rap or mix. All submitted ringtones are immediately shown in the GTST mobile shop. A top 10 will be compiled from the most popular ringtones and a professional jury will eventually choose the winning ringtone. The ringtone itself will then be heard in the popular Dutch soap series Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden.

Television series are like games with real actors in them. Who looks at it like this just sees a co-creation production. Soon we’ll be able to design are own worlds, houses, furniture, cars while the actors walk around in them. And if they open a chest of drawers it’ll turn out that we’re in there. Or a new game will start. It’s all running through one another. Ever more fun. Ever more creative.