2. CURIOSITY STOP
‘Social Thinking’ is understanding how and why people communicate. We use this insight to
provide value for our clients. This understanding is an ongoing passion project for We Are
Social.
Our global team of 550 keep a keen eye out for intriguing changes in the social landscape. We
take the best of these innovations and compile them in the monthly
Curiosity Stop.
You’ll see some examples which prove our social trendspotting, and others which indicate what
might happen next. But if you look really closely, you might catch a glimpse into the future of
how and why we use social.
3. Curiosity Stop >
September
Tom Ollerton, Innovation Director, London
Tom Ollerton, Innovation Director, London
With September comes that back to school feeling, and what better way
to indulge your newfound academic cravings than indulging in this
month’s Curiosity Stop? We’ve uncovered yet more social innovations
which fit the trends uncovered in our Think Forward report, as well as a
few more that caught us by surprise.
Social Status Seekers have never had it so good - and it's not just about
showing off your latest brunch pictures on Instagram. Now you can show,
rather than just tell, the world just how important you really are, by
signing up for your own AI personal assistant. Need to schedule a
meeting? Just cc in Amy.
Meanwhile, Wearable Social shows no sign of slowing down, with the new
Pilot earbuds working as your own personal translation service.
But as always, there are some developments on the horizon that even we
couldn't have predicted. Want to send messages to your child via their
cuddle toy? Check. Need to send a personal message to the US President?
Sorted.
So settle down and enjoy that smug top of the class feeling by getting on
top of all of the world's latest innovations in this month's Curiosity Stop.
4. Social Trend 1:
Social Status Seekers
Seeking Social status isn’t new, but the technology
enabling this behaviour is.
5. Bored of the back and forth of
organising meetings? @xdotai creates
'Amy', an #AI personal assistant.
Social Status Seekers >
X.ai
What’s it all about?
Everyone knows you’ve made it if you’ve got a personal
assistant. With the new uprising of AI PAs you can do
business like a #boss without the pressure of shelling out for
a mid-range bottle of wine at Christmas for their efforts.
To this end, X.ai has created ‘Amy’. She’ll save you time by
scheduling your meetings and also cooly cancel the ones
you’d rather not attend when Friday drinks are calling. Not
diggin’ Amy? Julie Desk and Zoom.ai are also ready for hire.
The bigger picture
As we see machine learning, AI and natural language
processing getting corralled for more narrowly purposed
means, bots are finding a natural home in the office to help
with repetitive, mundane tasks, so you can spend more
time doing the stuff you’re good at.
CLICK TO TWEET:
6. Social Trend 2:
Wearable Social
The forecasted wearable device market value
for 2018 is $13Bn. We are entering a world of
“Wearable Social” where movement,
heartbeats and emojis are a new form of
social language.
7. Wearable Social >
Pilot earbuds
What’s it all about?
As an adult the dream of mastering a foreign language is
often added to the bucket list, but when there’s just so
many great Netflix Original series out there, it often gets
sidelined - sigh.
The technology promised by Pilot earbuds means that
we’ll be able to converse with others without language
barriers using speech recognition and machine
translation. The translated speech is all delivered
through a discreet earpiece. Alles klar?
The bigger picture
Now that the internet has connected roughly 40% of the
world, one of the biggest challenges still standing in the
way of international communication is language, but
step by step this is becoming less of a barrier.
CLICK TO TWEET:
Pilot earbuds translate spoken
conversation into your ear, so you'll
never miss out on a holiday romance
again!
8. Social Trend 3:
Social Currency
It’s been said that the internet is made of cats.
While that’s not entirely true, social media got
a bad name for its propensity to share feline
footage. But this has changed - now you can
arrange a mortgage on WeChat. Some people
trust sending payments and talking about it
publicly on social. It’s time to reappraise social
as a cat meme dumping ground and get
onboard with the new economics of Social
Currency.
9. Social Currency >
Embarq
What’s it all about?
As travelling becomes easier and most of the world is
within our reach, it is hard to not get wanderlust.
Unfortunately, unless airlines start accepting crinkled six
month old receipts and out of date condoms as a form
of payment, we won’t be going anywhere soon.
Luckily Air Canada has launched Embarq which works
like Kickstarter. You can set up an account where you ask
friends to help you raise funds for your flights. Those
three bloody marys ‘to take the edge off’ will
unfortunately need to be self-funded though.
The bigger picture
We’ve already seen crowdfunding platforms make it
more commonplace for people to realise their business
dreams. Now it’s also possible for millennials with
wanderlust to crowdfund their globetrotting dreams.
CLICK TO TWEET:
.@AirCanada's Embarq lets you
crowdfund your next trip.
10. Social Trend 4:
On The Horizon
These innovations don’t fit neatly into our
trends (dammit), but we reckon they are
worth a mention. Successful innovations
create expectation, so we’ll be keeping a
keen eye on them. Watch this space - if they
turn into a wider trend, you’ll be the first to
know.
11. Meet Mon-Mon: A novel (and adorable)
way for parents to message their young
children.
On the Horizon >
Mon-Mon
What’s it all about?
Everybody’s on the WeChat hype in China. Even toddlers.
Mon-Mon is a cuddly toy, inspired by a popular WeChat
sticker, which kids can use to send and receive messages.
Parents can use the official Mon-Mon account in WeChat
to send voice recordings (songs, nursery rhymes, orders
to ‘TIDY YOUR BEDROOM’ and so on) to their children.
Mon-Mon lights up with new messages and to respond,
the little darlings simply press Mon-Mon’s belly and chat
away. A (no doubt extremely coherent) voicemail will then
be left in Mum and Dad’s WeChat account.
The bigger picture
Asia is well ahead of a trend we’re starting to see unfold in
the western world - where connected devices (and in this
case, toys) are used to help people feel closer to
each other.
CLICK TO TWEET:
12. On the Horizon >
Obamachat
What’s it all about?
Hello Mr President! Obama’s got a new hotline and it runs
via Facebook straight to the White House. That’s right, now
you can send America’s leader a Facebook message.
He apparently reads 10 messages everyday, so don’t miss
your chance to have your say on global warming,
third-world debt or simply check in to ask ‘u ok hun?’
The bigger picture
Direct communication between heads of states and the
common citizen has been an important tradition of
democracies for hundreds of years but now, along with
Obama’s penchant for Twitter and Snapchat, messaging
platforms are allowing us to have one-to-ones with our
leaders in the same way we casually chat with our
friends.
CLICK TO TWEET:
Whether you want to put the world to
rights or simply just say 'hi', now you
can Facebook message
@BarackObama.
14. WE ARE SOCIAL
We Are Social is a global agency with offices in five continents
(Antarctica is a little too chilly for our liking).
We deliver world-class creative ideas with forward-thinking brands, and have fun doing it. Our
clients include adidas, Google and Netflix.
As an international team of 550+, our passion is people. Our mission is to put social thinking at
the centre of marketing.
Trendspotting might get us unnaturally excited, but what really counts is action. If you'd like to
speak to We Are Social about how to make innovation work for your brand, email us at
talktous@wearesocial.net