A monthly snapshot of Trends in marketing, storytelling and digital culture locally and abroad.

1. THETRENDSREPORT
September 2015
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THETRENDSREPORT
April 2016
Proudly brought to you by NATIVE VML

2. A MONTHLY SNAPSHOT OF TRENDS INMARKETING,
STORYTELLINGANDDIGITALCULTURELOCALLYANDABROAD.

3. CREATIVITY
ANDANEW
REALITY

4. Physical, electrical, and mental power through
advancements in technology have altered how
we think, how we work, how we drive, and the
future of humans and robotics.
Power in the hands of
the beholder.

5. Live streaming of a cancer operation
Medical Realities streamed the first virtual reality
surgery.At the Royal London Hospital in earlyApril,
users across the world were able to view a live feed
of an operation on a colon cancer patient.
Users could access the stream of a 360-degree view
of the operating room through a desktop or
smartphone app.
READ MORE
Source: Medical Realities

6. Volvo uses a highway to turn cars into power sources
Volvo experimented with rigging a LosAngeles
highway to power their XC90 T8 Twin Engine Hybrid
SUV. What does that mean? The Volvo’s power
source came from other cars passing over a slab on
the highway, using a hydraulic pump system to
create enough energy to power the SUV.
Source: CampaignLive
READ MORE

7. Better robots built from cockroach brain
It sounds like something out ofAnt-Man, but this story
is true. Researchers at Case Western Reserve
University are using cockroaches to develop the
brains of robots, potentially to “locate survivors of
building collapses or other disasters.”
Source: Dispatch
READ MORE

8. INNOVATION
AND DISRUPTION

9. Artificially intelligent systems are being equipped
with intuitive abilities to think for people so that
they don’t have to.
Think for yourself.

10. The perfectly dressed man
A ‘lewk’ is described as a guy who is awesome
in every way. Enter Lewk, a mens clothing
startup that uses algorithms to make a guy
awesome in every (fashion) way.
Coming from an insight that men hate shopping,
Lewk has designed ‘algorithmic decision engine’
to figure out what suits you best and what you
like.
All clothes are manufactured inhouse with
collaborations from unknown designers for
exclusivity.
Source: TechCrunch
READ MORE

11. Never leave home without your wallet or phone
again
Jaguar Land Rover has teamed up with Tile Inc.
to include an app that tracks essential personal
items in the 2017 Land Rover Discovery Sport.
Tile produces small plastic fobs that can be
affixed to items, like keys or wallets, in order to
locate them if missing. “Drivers will be able to
set up a list of essential items and check it every
time they get into their vehicles.”
Source: TechCrunch
READ MORE

12. Digitize a woman’s internal clock
First Response has disrupted the pregnancy test
market with what it calls the “first pregnancy test
that syncs with your smartphone” to take the
stress out of waiting for your results.
The “world’s first Bluetooth pregnancy test” was
piloted in the US in March and hit shelves mid-
April.
Source: Medical Daily
READ MORE

13. MEDIA
JUJITSU

14. Consumers keep finding ways to avoid ads, and
retailers are making it harder for brands to get
displays into stores. But marketers have much
more control over one medium: their own
packages. Thanks to new technological
advances, those packages are likely to morph
into digital devices that can serve as hubs for
marketing programs in the years ahead.
Packaging the future.

15. "The retailer will have the ability to do quick inventory by
having the in-store cloud communicate with packages on the
shelves…Packages will automatically communicate with their
home system what they bought, when it was bought and
maybe even record receipt information. If it's perishable, you'll
get alerts when foods will be going bad in the next few
days…”
TERRY TABER, Kodak CTO

16. SmartLabels
The Grocery Manufacturers Association last year
launched its SmartLabels™ initiative with 30
major consumer packaged goods that by 2017,
will make detailed ingredient, safety and other info
available by scanning packaging codes with
smartphones.
Source: Advertising Age & Flexpackmag.com
READ MORE

17. Marmite’s “Genie in a bottle”
Using Blippar, an augmented reality app,
Unilever’s Marmite bottle turns into a ‘genie’ that
pulls virtual product information, and is designed
to help consumers access recipes.
Source: The Next Web
READ MORE

18. CONNECTING THE
UNCONNECTED

19. Upliftment and empowerment are key in the world
of technology. Having access to the world beyond
the physical is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.
Digital living.

20. Artificial Intelligence for the blind
Using what has been dubbed ‘automatic
alternative text’, Facebook has engineered a
product that can read a description of images
within a timeline based on their object recognition
technology.
The description of images can be heard from the
iOS app to help the blind ‘see’ what happens on
their Facebook timelines. Facebook appears to be
living up to their mission to connect the world.
Source: Facebook Newsroom
READ MORE

21. Digital Skills training for 1 million young Africans
In early April, Google announced that in the next
year it would train one million African young
people in digital skills. For this initiative, the
company has partnered with Livity Africa.
Source: IT News Africa
READ MORE

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