Insights from WTS2016: Creativity is the key to unlocking success in emerging tech
It becomes very clear that the best innovations on show are those that combine great emerging tech with unique creative thinking
After spending 2 days talking to brands, agencies and developers at the Wearable Technology Show and seeing everything from the smartest of connected cars through to sensors for effort monitoring (and pretty much everything in between) it becomes very clear that the best innovations on show are those that combine great emerging tech with unique creative thinking.
Turning emerging technology into engaging experiences
Unfortunately, for every great example of emerging tech in action there are more examples of where the experience simply does not meet user expectation. Having been sold on the idea that I could move a Scalextric car around a track using my mind (actually, it uses sensors to detect the levels of oxygen in the brain and transfers the activity into power for the car experiment) I was left disappointed and just a little bit conned when it failed to work for me.
Yes, it absolutely could have been down to a lack of mind power, I accept that (our very own Matt Key, pictured above, was more convinced than I was). But ultimately it was a bad UX resulting in me being more sceptical about the technology than I was before I experienced it.
This is fundamentally the wrong type of experience that any emerging tech user should be experiencing if the technology is to be a success; the creativity was there to get me on board but the technology failed. The opposite is also true as emerging technology requires creative thinking to turn it into compelling and engaging experiences.
Innovative technology requires real creative thinking to build greater user engagement
With our well documented expertise as a leading creative agency in the field of AR experiences for brands and products, we’ve always felt that AR is one such innovative technology which requires real creative thinking to build greater consumer engagement for our clients.
Our focus as an agency is on the creative and innovative ways in which emerging technology can help bring brands to life:
– How do you get a traditional publishing business to connect with their readers on mobile devices?
– How do you enable consumers to easily try more before they buy in the retail environment?
– How do you provide amazing multi-sensory experiences at events?
These are some of the big questions we’re tackling with AR, VR and proximity technology and I believe that our creative agency background and our questioning approach has been the key to finding the answers.
And, in a very roundabout way, this is the big insight that I will be taking from WTS2016.
My mind might not be able to control a Scalextric car (yet) but the creative thinking (combined with technical expertise) that the team here at Engine Creative bring to the emerging tech market is absolute gold dust.
