MostContagious2012.pdf - Contagious Magazine

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Introduction / 

By Paul Kemp-Robertson, Contagious, and Dave Senay, Fleishman-Hillard 

Movements / 

Evolution and empowerment 

Purpose / 

Playing a role in society 

Marketing as Service Design / 

Utility not noise 

Divine Data / 

Insight by numbers 

Technology / 

Big battles, small victors 

Design / 

Personalised play 

Social Business / 

Adopting an open door policy 

Image Sharing / 

The year of the photo 

MOVEMENTs purpose sErVicE data technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment sbpf

Amplified Live / 

Enhance, capture and share 

Screen Grabs / 

Creating, sharing, watching 

Augmented Media / 

Layering content and utility 

Retail / 

Shopping gets connected 

Personalisation / 

Here’s to you 

The New Loyalty / 

Services not schemes 

Payments / 

Changing the way we pay 

Small But Perfectly Formed / 

Little brands, big thinkers 

Most Contagious / Award Winners 

MOVEMENTs purpose sErVicE data technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment sbpf 

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Contagious / Introduction 

By Paul Kemp-Robertson 

Welcome to the Most Contagious 2012 report, 

our annual review of the trends, technologies and 

creative innovations that have influenced brands 

this year. By putting the past 12 months into 

context we hope to equip you, in some small way, 

for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. 

The golden thread stitching the year’s report 

together is citizenship. Think of the spirit of the 

London Olympics encapsulated by Tim Berners- 

Lee at the height of the opening ceremony, 

tweeting ‘This is for Everyone’ to the watching 

world. Think also of the disintermediating potential 

of Kickstarter and the grassroots fan fiction 

communities that spawned Fifty Shades of Grey. 

How about the data-driven intimacy of Obama’s 

election campaign? The transparency and ubiquity 

of social media is fuelling the rise of people 

power. What’s more, Nielsen’s Global, Socially 

Conscious Consumer report found that 66% of 

consumers prefer to buy from companies that 

have implemented programmes to give back to 

society. Citizens the world over are demanding 

that advertising speeds up its radical shift from 

perfection to honesty, from control to collaboration. 

In Contagious Magazine’s recent case study 

on IBM (Issue 33) we looked at how one of the 

world’s biggest brands has re-engineered its 

smarter commerce principles around the ‘Chief 

Executive Consumer’. This is a business philosophy 

also endorsed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos: 

‘Above all else, align with customers. Win when 

they win. Win only when they win.’ 

Brands behaving as super-citizens is something 

that our consultancy team at Contagious Insider 

explored in a Cannes seminar in June, where we 

presented the concept of brand as interface, not 

interrupter. We used the title ‘Better With The 

Brand’ to suggest that the best brands are a 

conduit through which the lives of real people can 

be made better. The original definition of the word 

interface is to meet, to synchronise, to coordinate, 

to harmonise. We think that a brand should behave 

as an indispensable tool or a common boundary 

that connects people to information, augmented 

content, services and experiences that they 

wouldn’t get via any other means. 

That’s why this report is filled with examples of 

brands being driven by a higher sense of purpose. 

Brands have long behaved like corporate Medicis 

– bestowers of creative munificence in the form of 

epic TV commercials or sponsored art – but now 

many are starting to take on the more purposeful 

role of NGOs. Most Contagious 2012 features 

examples of brands acting as lifesavers, health 

and wellbeing networks, educators, ecologists, 

technology incubators and – in the case of the 

Red Bull Stratos mission from the edge of space – 

daredevil rocket scientists. 

Maybe we should all be aiming higher. 

Paul Kemp-Robertson / 

Co-founder & Editorial Director 


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Fleishman-Hillard / Introduction 

By Dave Senay 

You’re about to read remarkable stories about people and brands that are pushing 

the boundaries of creativity and innovation. How branding is reinventing itself to 

meet real human needs, delivering tools and services that truly improve our lives, 

how social media is morphing into social business. And that’s just for starters. 

Most Contagious is about the structure, nature and purpose of business itself, 

and incorporates society as a whole. Creativity is breaking out of the confinements 

of communications and marketing to the bigger, deeper role it needs to play in the 

transformation of our organisations and society. 

Businesses are rising and crashing faster than ever. We see this in the collapse 

of the boundaries that used to separate public relations from marketing, reputation 

management from brand marketing. These labels seem so irrelevant today. Your 

brand is your reputation. Your reputation is your behaviour. How you are is who 

you are. 

This means our organisations must become exceptionally clear and aligned around 

their core values, purpose and character. So we must communicate and behave in 

a manner that is consistent with our beliefs. Businesses must define and know their 

purpose and ensure that any marketing communication aligns with that. ‘Consumers’ 

need to be treated as people and provided with genuinely useful tools and services. 

We need to look beyond the value of their latest transaction, towards building 

lasting relationships. 

Most Contagious will provide you with the inspiration. The next step is to channel 

that into actions that make a difference. Over to you. 

Dave Senay, President and CEO of Fleishman-Hillard 

Most Contagious, in partnership with Fleishman-Hillard 


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MoveMents / 

evolution and 

eMpowerMent 

As we pound towards the finish line of 

2012, we can finally glance back on the 

landmark events, movements and socioeconomic 

shifts that have shaped the last 

12 months. 

We’ll try and save you the blood and sweat but 

we can’t guarantee not to tear up a little when 

replaying the collective glory of the Olympic 

Games or Obama’s choking speech to his victorious 

campaign staff… but more on that later. 

In 2011, we described how the torrent of information, 

collaboration and distribution afforded by 

the web was putting pressure not just on global 

industries, but also on governments and established 

social infrastructures. This year may have 

been less riotous, but it hasn’t failed to present 

significant fodder for the increasingly connected, 

enlightened and empowered world to sink its 

tweet-sharpened teeth into. So let’s begin… 


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London 2012 / 

The spirit of the Olympic Games was summed 

up during Danny Boyle’s epic opening ceremony, 

when father of the web, Tim Berners- 

Lee, took centre-stage and live-tweeted: ‘This is 

for everyone’. The message coursed around the 

stadium on over 70,000 handheld pixel screens 

wielded by the crowd. London 2012 was an 

Olympic Games for, about and powered by the 

people. 

Beyond the sentiment of this message was the 

amplification of the Olympics via social media, 

prompting the ‘Social Games’ tag. According to 

monitoring agency Radian 6, 9.9 million Olympic 

tweets were sent over the course of the 17 days. 

Tracking tool VenueSeen revealed that 260,000 

images were uploaded to Instagram with the 

hashtag #London2012. 

High levels of interaction were sustained, with 

#Paralympics trending worldwide during the 

Paralympics closing ceremony. For the first time 

in their 52-year history, the Paralympic Games 

sold out, proving that, in mobilising and empowering 

the masses, London 2012 created an insatiable 

appetite for Olympic competition which 

united every nation that took part, tuned in and 

tweeted. Well played, social media. 

bit.ly/olympics-social-infographic 

bit.ly/olympics-instagram 

US Presidential Election / 

When Obama won his first term in office in 

2008, it was no secret that his team wielded a 

distinct advantage over McCain et al. thanks to 

their competency in the social web and engaging 

the hoards of precious young voters who 

were flocking to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. 

2012, however, was a different matter; not 

only were the Republicans catching up in the 

polls as well as in their social media competency, 

but Obama’s team now had to appeal to 

a much wider range of demographics on social 

platforms (Facebook’s user base had increased 

from 100 million to 800 million). Also the novelty 

of social media was wearing off for many voters, 

so the same issues that face the world’s biggest 

brands today also troubled both parties’ election 

teams – namely figuring out how to offer genuine 

relevance and value. 

Photo © It’s Your London / www.itsyourlondon.co.uk 

Mitt Romney’s digital director, 33-year-old Zac 

Moffatt, claimed in a pre-election interview with 

Mashable that Obama’s team was ‘still running 

their Facebook campaign like it’s 2008’. In contrast 

to the Obama team’s failure to adapt and 

evolve, he claimed that his strategy centred on 

driving engagement only on the platforms most 

relevant to Romney and his campaign. These 

were Google, Facebook and Twitter, although 

Moffatt also flirted with Instagram and Pinterest. 

Yet the Obama administration’s head start on all 

these platforms proved too much to overcome. At 

the time of election, Obama’s 28.8m Facebook 

Likes played Romney’s 7.1m; 19.9m Twitter followers 

played 1.1m. In terms of activity, the two 

teams employed surprisingly similar tactics, both 

opting for consistent, lightweight engagement 

and tempting voters with competitions to win dinner 

with Obama or a ride on Romney’s jet. 

The key difference, however, was tone. Obama’s 

team painted a far more intimate and personal 

picture of their candidate. In the end, it was 

this that signified Obama’s timely rediscovery of 

the ‘everyman’ mojo that won the world’s heart 

in 2008 and ended up clinching him a second 


Photo: bit.ly/11pWuzJ 

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MoveMents / 

evolution and 

eMpowerMent 

term in office. He declared victory on Twitter 

and then Facebook shortly after the first US 

network made the announcement. The now 

infamous ‘Four more years’ picture used by 

his team has since become the most shared 

in history, racking up a record 4.4m Likes on 

Facebook and over 817,000 retweets. 

tinyurl.com/mashable-romney-obama 

tinyurl.com/social-media-election2012 

Disintermediation / Crowdfunding 

Admittedly it hardly trips off the tongue, but 

disintermediation (that’s cutting out the middle 

man) has been one of the hottest topics 

in the Contagious office this year. 

On 19 November, video game designer 

Chris Roberts smashed the record for the 

most crowdfunding ever raised for a new 

title – US$6.2m – pledged by PC gamers 

around the world to see his space sim, Star 

Citizen, get made. The generous gamers 

won’t get hold of an alpha version of the 

title for at least another year, but their faith 

and investment is a perfect example of how 

crowdfunding has matured in 2012. 

tinyurl.com/9amw3tc 

Roberts sourced $2.1m of his funding 

through Kickstarter, with roughly 34,000 

backers donating an impressive average of 

$62 each. This is consistent with current 

behaviour on the platform, with video games 

receiving more funding this year than any 

other category. Official figures published 

on the Kickstarter blog show that as of 

31 August, Games had racked up $50m, 

beating Film ($42m) Design ($40m) Music 

($25m) and Technology ($16m). 

tinyurl.com/9trtdlp 

Despite the success of Kickstarter, 2012 

has also revealed potential cracks in the 

crowdfunding model. In November Kickstarter 

was sued by 3D Systems – a leading 

maker of 3D printers – which claimed that 

its patents were being infringed by a device 

made by an MIT-bred company, Formlabs, 

which secured over $2.9m on the crowdfunding 

platform. As more established companies 

start to see their offering undercut by 

crowdfunded challenger brands, perhaps 

it is inevitable that the rigour and legality 

of Kickstarter projects will be increasingly 

called into question. Crowdfunded legal 

representation anyone? 

tinyurl.com/c8aw8my 

Kickstarter is working hard to manage the 

expectations of backers, clarifying in its 

blog posts that the platform ‘is not a shop’ 

and there will be no equity crowdfunding or 

IPO made available. The process currently 

remains firmly rooted in gifting, not ownership, 

although this hasn’t stopped many 

economists claiming that the real revolution 

will come when backers will be able to obtain 

equity in exchange for their investment. 

tinyurl.com/c9fw38m 

Disintermediation / Fifty Shades of Grey 

Lastly, we can’t cover disintermediation 

without recognising the amateur success 

story of 2012 – E.L. James’ (aka British 

author Erika Leonard’s) erotic novel 

Fifty Shades of Grey. Although eventually 

published through a traditional publisher 

(Random House subdivision Vintage 

Books), Fifty Shades started out as somewhat 

niche Twilight fan fiction written under 

the pen name ‘Snowqueen’s Icedragon’. 

It lived first on fanfiction.com, then on 

Leonard’s own website, FiftyShades.com, 


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efore being released as an e-book, joining 

the hundreds of thousands of other 

titles now being sold directly from author 

to reader on Amazon. 

Only after it gained significant traction on 

e-readers around the world was it selected 

for re-release by Vintage and proceeded to 

become the best-selling book in British history 

and spend a record 20 weeks at No.1 

on USA Today’s best-selling books list. Like 

or loathe Fifty Shades, it proved that anyone 

with a basic knowledge of BDSM and a 

passion for the written word could become 

one of the most successful authors of all 

time. Go internet. 

Democratised Education / 

Potentially the most socially significant 

well to spring forth from the internet in 

2012 is that of democratised educational 

resources. Put simply, online learning that 

now extends far beyond a bodged Sweet 

Child O’ Mine guitar tutorial on YouTube… 

The standard in mass, online education was set by the Kahn Academy, 

founded in 2006 by Bangladeshi MIT and Harvard Business 

School graduate, Salman Khan. This non-profit organisation relies 

on donations for funding and has delivered over 200 million lessons 

(approx. 3,600 of which are available on YouTube) across topics 

including medicine, art history, macroeconomics and computer science. 

What 2012 has brought, however, is a new generation of 

alternatives inspired by Kahn’s original dream to provide a ‘high 

quality education to anyone, anywhere’. 

www.khanacademy.org 

Most notable is Udacity, founded by Stanford professor and 

Google Fellow Sebastian Thrun. Unlike the Kahn Academy, Udacity 

is a private organisation funded by venture capital firm, Charles 

River Ventures, as well as other companies such as Google that 

sponsor specific courses in exchange for access to the most 

promising talent. Launched in February this year, Udacity currently 

specialises in computer science, with courses including Programming 

Languages and Applied Cryptography, although 2013 will 

see HTML5 Game Development added to the syllabus amongst 

other new subjects. Udacity currently has approximately 400,000 

students worldwide. 

www.udacity.com 

It is two of Thrun’s colleagues at Stanford, Andrew Ng and 

Daphne Koller, who are responsible for 2012’s other standout 

source of online education – Coursera. Unlike the Kahn Academy 

or Udacity, Coursera partners with 33 existing universities such as 

Princeton, Michigan and Pennsylvania to make some of their most 

popular courses available for free online. It has already attracted 

1.8m students since April, as well as $16m in first round venture 

funding. As Koller explained to the Guardian newspaper in November, 

‘We had a million users faster than Facebook, faster than Instagram. 

This is a wholesale change in the educational ecosystem.’ 

www.coursera.org 

So there you have 2012, a year in which the novelty of social media 

wore off and in its place arrived a new standardised expectation for 

how we can interact with the world. This includes controlling what 

products are made and how much we pay for them, right through 

to accessing the kind of education that will create and empower 

whole new generations of technological entrepreneurs from different 

nations around the world. Think we’re making progress now? 

Something tells us we ain’t seen nothing yet… 


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purpose / 

playing a 

role in 

society 

Purpose has been an overriding 

theme of 2012, with companies 

realising that a brand doesn’t exist 

inside a bubble of happy, shiny 

marketing; it has a role to play in 

society. 

As David Hieatt, founder of Hiut Denim 

(featured in our Small But Perfectly 

Formed section), says: ‘The great brands 

of the world make a great product but 

also have a clear understanding of their 

purpose. They understand the “why” as 

well as the “what” and the “how”.’ 

One company that embodies this is 

US restaurant chain Chipotle, with its 

‘Food with Integrity’ mission that pushes 

the organic food agenda and fights the 

cause of beleaguered farming communities 

in America’s bread basket states. 

Contagious was delighted to see its 

animated Back to the Start film (featured 

in Most Contagious 2011) win a flurry of 

awards this year, with its prize money for 

the Grandy appropriately donated to the 

Chipotle Cultivate Foundation. 


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MoveMents 

the new 

world order 

Another Contagious favourite, the outdoor 

brand Patagonia, pinned its sustainable 

colours to the mast in January by 

becoming a certified B Corp, an idea that’s 

gathering momentum across the US. There 

are now some 650 B Corps, validated by 

the non-profit B Lab based on meeting 

specific standards for social and environmental 

performance, legal accountability 

and transparency. 

The fact is, people like to be good. One of 

Contagious’ choice stats of the year came 

from Nielsen’s Global, Socially Conscious 

Consumer report, which found that 66% of 

consumers around the world prefer to buy 

from companies that have implemented 

programmes to give back to society. Below 

are our top picks from the year. 

Safaricom / Daktari 1525 

To differentiate itself in the Kenyan telco 

marketplace, the company behind successful 

mobile money transfer service M-Pesa 

has rolled out a mobile health service. 

With just one doctor for every 10,000 

people in Kenya, Safaricom (working with 

agency Squad Digital, Nairobi) joined 

forces with Dial-a-Doc Ltd, an organisation 

specialising in the dissemination of medical 

information, to improve access to expert 

medical advice for those living in rural areas 

and relieve pressure on overstretched outpatient 

departments. 

The Daktari 1525 service enables Safaricom 

customers to dial 1525 on their 

mobiles 24/7 to be connected, via Safaricom 

call centres, to one of 50 qualified 

doctors recruited by Dial-a-Doc. The call 

charge of Kshs20 per minute (to cover the 

doctors’ fees, rather than the connection 

charge) is subsidised by Safaricom, which 

recently slashed it in half to widen access. 

The service currently handles around 2,000 

calls per day. Featured in Contagious 31. 

The company continues to explore new 

ways to transform people’s lives via its 

mobile network. In October, it joined forces 

with mobile technology company M-KOPA 

to make solar power accessible to low 

income families in rural Kenya via a pay-asyou-go 

Safaricom SIM card. 

tinyurl.com/daktari1525 

Tata Docomo / BloodLine Club 

Telecoms companies are a vital link between 

people. Indian telecoms service Tata Docomo 

has demonstrated the potential of 

using this link for philanthropic purposes 

with a peer-to-peer blood donor matching 

service called the BloodLine Club. 

Volunteer blood donors sign up via their 

mobile, Facebook or Twitter by entering a 

few details including, of course, their blood 

type. In the event that someone needs 

blood, they’ll be pinged, and should they 

need blood themselves, they can then 

ping their network, linking them up with 

local people who are part of the scheme. 

Members can even call people directly to 

arrange giving blood in an emergency. 

By using its infrastructure to extend its 

remit in this way, Tata Docomo is acting as 

an NGO, stepping in to provide the kind of 

life-saving scheme that it could take governments 

years to set up. 

www.bloodlineclub.com 

Renault / MOBILIZ 

To help the socially or economically 

excluded in France, automotive company 

Renault launched Renault MOBILIZ in July. 

This initiative aims to make transport more 

accessible for those who can’t afford to 

own or maintain a car. 

Renault is working with volunteer garages 

and dealerships in its network, called 

‘Socially Responsible Renault Garages’ or 

‘Garages Renault Solidaires’, to develop 

affordable repair schemes for those on low 

incomes. It is also partnering with NGO 

Voiture & Co to support initiatives such as 

car-pooling, community transport, and lowcost 

car hire and has launched (with an initial 

budget of €5m) an investment company, 

MOBILIZ Invest, to finance companies 

developing innovative mobility solutions for 

people in social and financial difficulty. 

Renault has long held the ambition of providing 

mobility for all, but this programme 

shows the automotive company moving 

beyond its core product to invest in mobility 

services. With lack of access to transport 

being one of the major causes of social 

and economic exclusion, Renault MOBILIZ 

offers a genuine lifeline to the eight million 

people in France living below the poverty 

line – who wouldn’t otherwise be customers 

of Renault, but may well yet become so. 

Featured in Contagious issue 32. 

www.renault-mobiliz.com 


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MoveMents 

the new 

world order 

Banco Popular / The Most Popular Song 

Surprise hit of the year comes courtesy of 

Puerto Rico’s largest bank. Showing how 

a sense of purpose can be aligned with a 

company’s mission (and achieve a PR win 

in the process), Banco Popular set out to 

revive the country’s economy this year by 

effecting a fundamental cultural change. 

In Puerto Rico, 60% of the population 

lives on government handouts and this welfare 

culture is celebrated in the hit song No 

Hago Más Ná (‘I Do Nothing’). Based on 

this insight, Banco Popular – with agency 

JWT, San Juan – approached popular salsa 

band El Gran Combo to re-write their song 

so that the lyrics extolled the benefits of 

work rather than advocating laziness. The 

song quickly topped the music charts and 

helped spark debate about the local economy 

and the country’s future. The campaign 

culminated with the bank organising a free 

concert (featuring El Gran Combo) for over 

60,000 Puerto Ricans in January this year. 

The campaign generated $2.3m in earned 

media and helped Banco Popular to soar 

to an unprecedented 80% on a reputation 

index. It won the PR Grand Prix at Cannes, 

fulfilling the jury’s criteria of a strong idea, 

audience impact and a sense of purpose. 

Featured in Contagious issue 32. 

www.popular.com 

www.jwt.com/themostpopularsong 


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Marketing as 

service design / 

utility not noise 

Brands have long taken a good, 

hard look at consumer behaviour. 

But what if, instead of using that 

insight to serve people with the 

right type of ad at the right time, 

marketers considered adding value 

to the lives of those people, or 

removing pain points? 

That’s a service-design approach to marketing. 

We saw it in action in March this 

year when Dubai pizza-delivery company 

Red Tomato realised that because of 

the number of languages spoken in the 

Emirate, each phone-based order took 

nine minutes for customers to complete. 

No amount of leaflets through doors 

would ever overcome that situation. 


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Marketing as 

service design / 

utility not noise 

But what about – courtesy of TBWA\ RAAD 

– a Bluetooth-enabled fridge-magnet button 

that instantly sent an order for that customer’s 

favourite pizza via mobile when pressed? That 

would revolutionise the whole process. It’s a 

marketing solution so frictionless and, dare 

we say it, magical, that similar fridge magnets 

were quickly developed by Evian in France 

and Turkish telco Turkcell. Featured in Contagious 

issues 31, 32 and 33. 

www.redtomato.biz/magnet 

tinyurl.com/c6qnfet 

Västtrafik / Tram Sightseeing 

Gothenburg’s local transport authority, Västtrafik, 

was keen to get tourists off expensive 

tour buses and onto its tram network. So rather 

than bombard them with ads, it took a servicedesign 

approach to the problem. Created by 

Forsman & Bodenfors, a free Tram Sightseeing 

app guided people to their nearest 

tram stop. Once they were on a moving tram, 

the app used the phone’s GPS to play an 

audio tour triggered by the user’s specific 

location, telling travellers about landmarks as 

they passed them. Each tour told users when 

to change trams and dropped them back at 

their original location 45 minutes later. 

Forsman & Bodenfors told Contagious 

that the goal was ‘to produce advertising 

that didn’t feel like advertising’. It’s an objective 

that encapsulates marketing as service 

design: providing something so useful that it 

no longer feels like you’re being sold to, merely offered help and utility. Featured 

in Contagious issue 30. 

tinyurl.com/TramApp 

Delta / Fly Delta App 

US airline Delta updated its mobile app to allow customers to track their 

bags once they disappeared down those mysterious airport conveyor belts. 

Passengers who have scanned their bag tag can keep updated on its location 

even while on a flight, offering a little peace of mind that, even if it’s not 

where it’s meant to be, it’s at least not lost. A YouTube video, Your Bag’s 

Journey via Wieden+Kennedy, New York, showing what goes on ‘behind 

those rubber flaps’ has now cleared the 1.5 million view-count mark. The 

app also allows people to check-in, view updates to flight and boarding 

times, change their allocated seat and rebook a cancelled flight. The app is 

part of a wider personalisation drive from the airline, which includes making 

a range of back-end logistics data, including passenger profiles and ecommerce 

behaviour, available to customers. Featured in Contagious 30. 

tinyurl.com/DeltaAndroid 

tinyurl.com/DeltaiTunes 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocbxs5aWUso 

Orca Chevrolet / Rescue Drive 

Thinking more broadly about the customer journey than just how to entice 

people onto its forecourt, the Orca Chevrolet car dealership in Brazil took 

an insightful approach to promoting the new Chevrolet Cobalt. Its Rescue 

Drive campaign, created by Monumenta, Brasilia, saw the business partnering 

with a local breakdown service to send a new Cobalt (along with 

a salesman) to people stranded with broken-down vehicles. While the 


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escue company towed their faulty car away, Orca Chevrolet 

allowed motorists to drive themselves home in the new 

Cobalt. 

At its core, Rescue Drive was a smart way to add value 

to people’s lives while also running a product demo precisely 

at the time when drivers may be considering a new 

purchase, i.e. when their old car had crapped out on them. 

Go-getting managers looking to maximise productivity will 

no doubt like the way it mobilised showroom staff and stock 

into action instead of passively waiting for customers to 

come to them. Featured in Contagious issue 32. 

www.orca.com.br 

Dermacyd / Teen Code 

In an attempt to become part of Brazilian girls’ conversations, 

intimate soap Dermacyd Teen with Publicis, São 

Paulo created an online tool which allowed people to translate 

social-media posts into Teen Code – a secret language 

of symbols, numbers and letters. In order to write in Teen 

Code, people first had to gain access to the site by proving 

they were a girl – answering questions such as ‘When is 

the best time to moisturise?’ Highly secret messages could 

then be encoded and posted publicly across social networks, 

allowing friends to copy them and translate using the 

same Dermacyd site – as long as they could pass the ‘girls 

only’ entry criteria. 

With more than 498,000 coded messages written and 

an average site dwell time of five minutes 30 seconds, 

the brand not only positioned itself as a trusted friend to 

teenage girls, but potentially provided it with a huge quantity 

of personal insights about its target market. Featured in 

Contagious issue 31. 

www.dermacydteencode.com.br 

Bupa / FoodSwitch 

In a bid to help Australians make healthier food choices, 

medical health insurance provider Bupa launched its 

FoodSwitch app in January. Supermarket shoppers can 

use the app to scan food to view traffic-light coded info 

about the saturated fat, sugar and salt content in more 

than 20,000 products, as well as receive suggestions for 

healthier options. The app, based on three years’ research 

by The George Institute for Global Health, was downloaded 

26,000 times in the first 24 hours of its release – a 

figure which rose to 75,000 in just five days, making it Australia’s 

most downloaded free app on iTunes. 

Unlike traditional advertising, services are able to truly manifest 

brand promise and FoodSwitch is a great example of 

this. As a medical health insurance provider, Bupa’s marketing 

may encourage, persuade and influence people to 

adopt a healthy lifestyle. This app goes one step further, actually 

helping people to attain it. Featured in Contagious 30. 

tinyurl.com/foodswitch 


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divine data / 

insight by 

nuMbers 

If you were in any doubt as to the 

value of being more data literate, 

this year’s race for the White House 

should have you dusting down your 

calculator. 

So-called ‘big data’ proved its worth for 

President Obama, but for brands and 

marketers the challenge remains of what 

to measure, how to do it and how to act 

upon it. According to 2012 research 

from the Corporate Executive Board, 

marketers depend on data for just 11% 

of customer related decisions. 

It’s not just companies that are grappling 

with data: new tools are emerging 

to help more people ‘divine’ personal 

insights from their physiology too, to 

help them improve their health and 

wellbeing. 


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divine data / 

insight by 

nuMbers 

Predicting Presidents / 

When asked by a reporter what lesson would-be 2016 US Presidential 

candidates should glean from the 2012 election, David Axelrod, chief 

strategist for the re-elected Barack Obama, replied: ‘I would invest in people… 

who understand where the technology is going and what the potential 

will be by 2016 for communications, for targeting, for mining data, to 

make precision possible in terms of both persuasion and mobilisation.’ His 

words will no doubt also be ringing in the ears of CMOs the world over. 

With an analytics team five times larger than in 2008 and on the back of 

a promise from campaign manager Joe Messina ‘to measure every single 

thing in this election’, the sophisticated Democrat data machine (known as 

Narwhal) crunched its way to helping raise over $1bn in campaign funds, 

bagging Obama 1.25 million more votes from 18 to 24-year-olds than in his 

previous outing. Its influence on the final result was emphatic. 

But data-crunching wasn’t solely the preserve of backroom pollsters: 

many regular voters seeking smart analysis turned their attention from traditional 

political commentators towards stats junkie Nate Silver. Silver’s 

predictive modelling, hosted on blog FiveThirtyEight at the New York Times 

website, correctly predicted the race’s outcome in all 50 states, often in the 

face of staunch scepticism from the old guard. At one point in the election 

run-in, a fifth of traffic to the New York Times website visited Silver’s blog. 

fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com 

The Wearable Watchmen / 

The Quantified Self movement has gathered momentum over the past few 

years, but for most wannabe self-analysts there has been something missing: 

simple, affordable (and cool) technology to make personal analytics 

accessible. All that changed this year when Nike’s Digital Sport unit, working 

with R/GA and AKQA, launched Fuel, a new metric for measuring 

physical activity, and a piece of kit to collect the required input data, Fuel- 

Band. Nike effectively now sees itself as a tech company. 

The sleek black wristband measures steps taken, calories and time spent 

exercising via a three axis accelerometer to work out a Nike Fuel score 

against a daily target. The effect? Throughout the day, Nike – mimicking the 

relationship between the brand’s founders, coach Bill Bowerman and his 

college athlete Bill Knight – offers the wearer encouragement to be more 

active. 

A double Cannes Lions Grand Prix success, Stefan Olander, Nike’s VP 

of digital sport, told us in Contagious 32 that the thinking behind FuelBand 

was a customer centric sense of purpose: ‘We don’t start with technology 

or the potential profit, we always start with the athlete. I think that’s an 

important distinction, because when you do that the other things follow.’ 

www.nike.com/FuelBand 

Adidas / miCoach Elite System 

Not to be left behind, adidas has been making progress with its own personal 

fitness tracking tool, miCoach. Football could be on the brink of its very 

own Moneyball moment, after the German sportswear brand announced in 

July a deal with Major League Soccer (MLS) in the US, whereby every 

player in the league next season will be equipped with a miCoach Elite 

System data cell. The data transmitted from the devices during games 

(including metrics such as heart rate, speed, acceleration, distance, field 

position and, power) will help coaches on the touchline make better selection 

decisions based on performance levels. The MLS is also promising to 


17

divine data / 

insight by 

nuMbers 

make at least some of that data available to 

fans for greater insight into their favourite 

teams. Contagious 33. 

Meanwhile, for those a touch shy about 

their self-quantifying ways, help may be 

at hand from Indiegogo-funded company 

Misfit Wearables. Its first product, Shine, 

is the size of a quarter and discreetly clips 

on to clothing to collect activity data. It 

syncs with an iPhone when placed on the 

phone screen without a Bluetooth or cable 

connection. 

www.adidas.com/us/micoach 

www.misfitwearables.com 

Performance-Based Data Deals / 

For those inclined to track and share data 

on their physical performance, benefits and 

offers lie in wait from brands keen to lure or 

reward high value customers. 

Nike in Mexico used data generated 

from Nike+ gizmos to reward runners in a 

week of online auctions. Bid Your Sweat, 

with JWT, Mexico, saw the kilometres that 

runners amassed converted into currency 

which could be bid on products such as 

Nike FuelBands. The further they ran, or the 

better they performed, the more ‘currency’ 

they amassed. In two weeks, 5,000 people 

installed the app to bid with their kilometres. 

A total of 1,000 km were offered for the first 

pair of Nike Free 5.0. Contagious 31. 

Meanwhile, UK insurance broker Motaquote 

partnered with Dutch GPS navigation 

specialists TomTom in February to create 

a new data-driven policy that gives lower 

premiums to people who drive better. The 

Fair Pay policy sees customers provided 

with a modified satnav that sends details 

about their driving back to the insurer in 

real time, as well as to the screen, meaning 

drivers can modify and improve their driving 

style whilst Motaquote can offer fairer 

deals. Contagious issue 30. 

nikemexico.mx/subasta 

www.motaquote.co.uk 

IBM / 

Over the last year, business software specialist 

IBM has been working with sports 

organisations to help fans understand and 

analyse performance in new ways, whilst 

also showcasing its technology and data 

capabilities. 

At the start of the year, the software company 

partnered with NFL team Miami Dolphins 

to install some of its Smarter Cities 

analytics solutions into the franchise’s Sun 

Life Stadium. The aim was to provide better 

experiences for fans, for whose custom 

the stadium now competes with the evermore 

sophisticated comforts of home and 

big screen HDTV. The result? By running 

data from inputs such as information from 

turnstile passages, weather reports, traffic 

conditions, and social media updates, IBM’s 

Intelligent Operations Centre will soon be 

able to advise stadium management and 

fans in real time on anything from where to 

find a car park space, to which parts of the 

stadium have best performing concessions. 

See IBM case study in Contagious 33. 

Meanwhile over at Flushing Meadows, as 

part of its sponsorship of the US Open, the 

IBM analysts were crunching match stats to 

offer fans new insights into the strategies of 

the competing players. The Game Changer 

Wall was updated in real time to show not 

only real-time predictions on match outcomes, 

but also how player performance 

affected social media sentiment. 

tinyurl.com/85fvbyb 

www.usopen.org/ibm 


18

technology / 

big battles, 

sMall victors 

Patent Wars erupted into 

mainstream consciousness in 2012, 

with Apple beating Samsung in the 

first of the year’s major quarrels. 

Technology consumers are beginning to 

understand the capital value of patents, 

both in defending a company’s intellectual 

property and litigating against 

others, often labeled Patent Trolls. As 

one Silicon Valley insider told us, it’s like 

an arms race, with major tech companies 

comparing their stacks of patents 

against each other. 


19

technology / 

big battles, 

sMall victors 

The strategic flow of rare earth metals and the conditions in which products 

are assembled have become part of the transparency discussion for 

major brands. Investigation into Foxconn, supplier to Apple and others, 

has sparked ethical questions around consumption and compensation. 

Meanwhile, makers in the developed world are debating the efficacy of 

robots versus humans, to assemble parts in factories, to choose pills in 

pharmacies, to drive cars and to write articles. 

Small prototypes point the way forward. We saw many types of wearable 

tech offer additional dimensions and functionality. And it’s getting easier 

to raise money, with Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites continuing 

to power intriguing projects. But, watch what you make, and how long 

you take: Kickstarter has just been named in a patent case, and murmurs 

about project fulfillment times and realistic goals versus hype and fraud are 

becoming louder… 

Google / Project Glass 

By far this year’s sexiest piece of tech is Google’s Project Glass, from the 

company’s X Lab. Essentially a pair of augmented reality spectacles, the 

device allows users to see messages, calendars, maps and even record 

and stream live video. After launching in April, Glass made a daredevil 

entrance to the company’s I/O developer conference, where Google outfitted 

skydivers and bike riders in the glasses and got them to live display 

their stunts through a Google+ hangout before meeting co-founder Sergey 

Brin onstage. Google sold a prototype of its glasses to the developers 

who attended the conference for $1,500. This project illustrates the 

potential of how wearable computing can make it more seamless for consumers 

to share and access information. In September, during New York 

City’s Fashion Week, Diane von Furstenberg’s fashion show saw models 

wearing the glasses striding down the runway. After the show Google 

published a YouTube video of footage captured by models, stylists, and the 

designer herself. Contagious 31. 

plus.google.com/+projectglass 

Rethink Robotics / Baxter 

Baxter Rodney Brooks, world-renowned robotics expert and professor 

emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with his company 

Rethink Robotics, has created Baxter, a robot designed to help US 

manufacturers. Baxter was created to be more human than existing robots, 

with eyes on a screen that register emotions like happiness or surprise. 

Baxter adapts to changing conditions and can be taught to perform new 

tasks. Importantly, at $22,000 Baxter is cheaper than most traditional 

robots, which may help revive US manufacturing. Contagious 33. 

www.rethinkrobotics.com 

Disney Research / REVEL 

Disney’s research arm is working with academics from Carnegie Mellon 

University, Pittsburgh, to develop technology that will add artificial tactile 

sensations to almost any surface or object. REVEL, by Disney Research, 

Pittsburgh, is a wearable system that can add textures to furniture, touch 

screens, walls, art, plastic or even human skin. The system injects a weak 

electrical signal into a user’s body, so when they touch the surface of another 

object connected to the system, it becomes augmented with an additional 


20

technology / 

big battles, 

sMall victors 

artificial texture. For instance, while wearing the REVEL 

system, you may be able to feel the texture of stuffed tortoises’ 

shells through a plexi case. The creators believe the 

mobile, inexpensive technology could be used to let people 

access private tactile information on public touchscreens, 

experience personal sensations in applications or games, 

or get dynamic tactile feedback from posters and maps. 

We can also envisage how the system could add an extra 

textural layer to entertainment content, advertisements or 

shopping websites. Contagious 33. 

tinyurl.com/disneyrevel 

Boxer8 / Ouya 

Riding the cultural wave for all things open source, startup 

Boxer8 and designer Yves Béhar created an Androidbased 

games console costing $99 called Ouya. Funded on 

Kickstarter and also involving former Microsoft VP of games 

publishing Ed Fries, the system includes a software development 

kit. All games will be free to play via the console, 

with developers setting their own prices for items bought in 

the game, or charging after a free trial. Hacking is encouraged – the device 

opens with standard screws and rooting it will not void the warranty. This 

has had the snowball effect of encouraging prominent developers to commit 

games to it. Robotoki founder Robert Bowling has announced an episodic 

prequel to Human Element exclusively to Ouya. He told PocketGamer: 

‘We really need to adapt our experiences and universes to the device our 

players are engaging with most.’ Contagious 32. 

www.ouya.tv 

Nest / 

Former chief architect at Apple, Tony Fadell, has taken the minimalism and 

sleekness of the iPhone and adapted it for a $250 home thermostat which 

claims to cut energy bills. The Nest Learning Thermostat, through Fadell’s 

company Nest Labs in Palo Alto, ‘learns’ as it is used, adapting to a householder’s 

schedule and using wifi to be ‘weather-aware’. An example of next 

generation connected home appliances, it can also be controlled remotely 

via a mobile app. Contagious 29. 

www.nest.com 


21

technology / 

big battles, 

sMall victors 

Leap / 

As the tracking technology powering the Kinect passes through the initial 

novelty phase, companies like Leap Motion aim to make faster, more 

accurate 3D modeling and response technology. The Leap device sits in 

a compact housing about the same size of an iPod and is set to retail 

for $70. Leap’s creators claim it’s up to 200 times more accurate than 

Kinect, thus enabling it to implement detailed gesture-based commands. 

Co-founder and CTO David Holz is a former fluid mechanics researcher 

for NASA. 

leapmotion.com 

Ones to Watch / 

Smart Sand comes from MIT’s Distributed Robotics Laboratory and 

Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Essentially, 

Smart Sand can self-assemble to copy objects, passing messages 

between grains to create structure. From there, the structure can be shuffled 

off to a permanent assembly protocol, like a 3D printer, leaving the 

smart sand to replicate the next item. Contagious 31. 

Google’s driverless car project became more significant this year when 

Nevada was the first state to allow the cars to operate on its roads. Florida 

and California have followed as the tech giant lobbies for legislation permitting 

its autonomous vehicles. 

In a world where the cost of connected technologies (such as RFID and 

NFC) is falling and smartphone penetration continues to rise, the internet 

of things has been on the theoretical table for a while. EVRYTHNG’s 

engine helps manufacturers create unique digital identities for individual 

objects. Drinks behemoth Diageo used EVRYTHNG to transform whiskey 

bottles in Brazil so that smartphone users could scan a code on a bottle 

to add personalised Father’s Day video messages. It has also used 

the platform to create applications that help track products in the supply 

chain and let customers ‘check in’ to products to receive loyalty rewards. 

Venky Balakrishnan, global vice president for marketing innovation, Diageo, 

said: ‘We now have a profound strategic opportunity to transform our 

physical products into owned digital media, which can communicate personalised 

information and experiences to consumers, exactly when and 

where they want it.’ Contagious 31. 

Having pioneered Steam, a software delivery service for its games, 

developer Valve is joining game industry heavies including Unity, id Software, 

Epic Games and more on the Oculus Rift, a virtual-reality headset 

for gaming. The diagonal field of view of the prototype is 110 degrees, 

compared with earlier models, which had only 40, and the headset boasts 

minimal processing delays. Founder Palmer Luckey was able to convince 

more than 9,500 Kickstarter backers to support the project, buying in to 

access the software development kit before the general public and raising 

over $2.4 million. Expected delivery date? January, 2013. 

bit.ly/H9Kd7x 

bit.ly/GYQHu1 

www.evrythng.com 

www.oculusvr.com 


22

design / 

personalised 

play 

In 2012 the increasing affordability 

and quality of 3D printing has 

seen the process become far more 

mainstream, with commercial 3D 

printer Cubify (priced at a very 

reasonable $1299) and Kickstarterfunded 

Formlabs’ Form1 ($3299) 

leading the way. 

Brands have reacted, utilising the 

technology and rethinking manufacturing 

processes in order to meet demands 

for products that are personalised and 

adaptable. Meanwhile hackers, makers 

and intrepid amateurs are generating 

and sharing their own 3D printing 

designs with the help of sites such as 

Autodesk’s 123D. 

Here, in our round-up of 2012’s design 

innovations, we bounce from new-age 

architecture and sustainable transport 

to playable buildings and shoes that find 

the way home for you. 


23

design / 

personalised 

play 

Photo / Heatherwick Studio 

Disney / D-Tech Me 

Disney’s tales give children the chance to 

dream that they are about to be plucked 

from obscurity and transformed into royalty, 

thanks to a genie or charming prince. This 

year, Disney gave wannabe child princesses 

the chance to see what they would look like 

as Sleeping Beauty or Snow White thanks to 

some in-store 3D printing. 

Children at the World of Disney Store in 

Florida could use the D-Tech Me experience 

to capture multiple angles of their face, which 

was digitally reconstructed using 3D printing 

technology to create a personalised Disney 

Princess figurine. Costing $99.95, the princesses 

were seven inches high and could be 

further customised to match their creator’s 

eye, hair and skin colour. 

D-Tech Me charmingly illustrates the potential 

applications of 3D printed products for 

brands, creating toys that are affordable and 

unique. The experience ran from August to 

November and Disney is considering rolling 

it out as a permanent fixture. Contagious 33. 

Japanese agency Party has also been enabling 

3D portrait miniatures. Visitors were 3D 

scanned in a photobooth in Harajuku and then 

awaited their tiny selves. Statuettes are available 

in three sizes and cost from ¥21,000 

($255). 

tinyurl.com/Disney-D-Tech 

www.omote3d.com 

ABSOLUT / Unique 

ABSOLUT’s iconic bottle has long been used as a creative medium, but in 

September the Pernod Ricard-owned vodka brand outdid itself with a limited 

edition of four million uniquely designed and numbered bottles. 

Collaborating with Stockholm-based agencies Family Business, Great 

Works, and Jung Relations, ABSOLUT re-engineered its production process 

to create what the company describes as ‘carefully orchestrated randomness’. 

Splash guns sprayed a range of 35 colours onto the bottles, 

while complex coating, pattern and placement algorithms ensured that each 

specific combination was never repeated. The bright colours and one-off 

designs ensure that the bottles create a splash on the shelf, and are desirable 

items that people want to keep, even if the vodka has long since disappeared. 

Contagious 33. 

absolut.com/unique 

Tesla S / 

Tesla’s S model sedan’s combination of performance, style and efficiency 

saw it named Motor Trend’s Car of the Year – the first vehicle without a 

combustion engine to do so. 

Launched in June 2012, the four door electric car manages an impressive 

range of 300 miles on one charge using the 85kW h battery, and takes only 

30 minutes for a half charge. It aims to compete with the best gas-powered 

cars, and sold out the 5,000 models produced in 2012, costing from 

$60,000 for the basic model. The Californian-based manufacturer aims to 

sell 20,000 units in 2013 at an increased price. 

www.teslamotors.com/models 

Coca-Cola / Coke Beat Box 

Created by young London-based architects Pernilla Ohrstedt and Asif 

Khan, Coca-Cola’s iconic pavilion at the Olympic Park was surrounded by a 

perpetual queue of people waiting for their opportunity to ‘play’ the building. 


24

design / 

personalised 

play 

Made from EFTE, a plaster polymer that acts like a speaker, the walls 

were sensitive to movement and touch and embedded with sample 

sounds. Connecting smartly back to Coke’s Move to the Beat proposition 

for its sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympic Games, the sound 

samples included a human heartbeat and trainers squeaking on a court 

taken from Mark Ronson’s song Anywhere in the World also created for 

the brand. Contagious 31. 

tinyurl.com/cokeBeatBox 

Interactive sound and light installation Resonate also impressed audiences 

in Frankfurt at the opening of biennial festival of lighting, Luminale 

2012. Visitors could ‘play’ complex string structures, which illuminated 

and made a sound when plucked. Created by students from University 

of Applied Sciences, Mainz and Joannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. 

tinyurl.com/cokeBeatBox 

luminale2012.fh-mainz.de/en 

Izhar Gafni / Cardboard Bike 

Demand for sustainable, low cost and innovative solutions for everyday life 

is high, so we applaud the creativity of Israeli designer Izhar Gafni who 

used origami principles to develop a bike made from cardboard. 

Strong, durable and cheap, the bikes are now close to mass production. 

They are set to have a substantial impact in developing countries, costing 

just $9 to produce, and will be sold for around $20. The bike weighs just 

9kg, around 65% less than its average metal counterpart, and uses no 

metal parts – even its chain is made from a car timing belt and the tyres 

are formed from reconstituted rubber. The cardboard’s coating makes it 

waterproof and fireproof, as well as giving the bike a slightly sleeker look. 

erb.co.il/en/cooperations.asp 

Dominic Wilcox / No Place Like Home / GPS Shoes 

Layering technology into physical products is growing apace, as Google 

Glass demonstrates in the Technology section of this report. A more 

whimsical approach comes from British designer Dominic Wilcox who 

has created a pair of shoes embedded with GPS to help the wearer easily 

find their way home. Inspired by Dorothy’s shoes in The Wizard of Oz, 

the shoes are activated when the wearer clicks their heels. The technology 

was developed by expert Becky Stewart from Codasign, London, and 

the shoes made by Stamp Shoes, Northampton, as part of the Northamptonshire 

Global Footprint Project to celebrate the English region’s historic 

shoe industry. 

www.dominicwilcox.com/gpsshoes.htm 


25

design / 

personalised 

play 

Mirai Nihon / TBWA\Hakuhodo 

The chance to live entirely off the grid in style comes in the form of this hitech 

house from TBWA\Hakuhodo. The Japanese ad agency collaborated 

with 20 companies that could provide the requisite technologies. The Nissan 

Leaf electric car, for example, acts both as a means of transport and 

a homepower generator, while Nissan Sangyo Corporation provides a 

special heat-resistant and insulating ceramic coating technology currently 

used in rockets. 

This project is a ground-breaking illustration of how brand alliances can 

fulfil a powerful social and environmental vision. Contagious 32. 

tinyurl.com/mirainihon 

Highly Commended / 

British architect Thomas Heatherwick’s incredible Cauldron to hold the 

Olympic flame marked the culmination of the London 2012 opening ceremony 

and, impressed as we were by the various stadia in the Olympic park, 

this was the piece of design that stood out from the Games this summer. 

Made of 204 inscribed copper pots, the Cauldron was formed during the 

opening ceremony, and dismantled during the closing ceremony, with each 

constituent part returned to the country it represented. Contagious 32. 

The largest climate-controlled greenhouses in the world known as The 

Cooled Conservatories have netted the World Building of the Year 2012 

award. Designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects, London, The Conservatories 

form part of Bay South in downtown Singapore and showcase the 

application of sustainable energy solutions while telling the story of plants 

and their intimate relationships with man and the ecosystem. Contagious 

issue 33. 

www.heatherwick.com/2012-olympic-cauldron 

bit.ly/cooled-conservatories 

www.wilkinsoneyre.com 

www.mvrdv.nl/#/news/mvrdvwinsfloriade2022 


26

social business / 

adopting an open 

door policy 

Brands are moving past social 

media marketing to incorporate 

social mechanisms into everything 

they do, from supply chains to 

customer service to product design. 

This is ushering in a new age of 

collaboration and transparency. 

Even large corporations and 

governments have now recognised the 

value of giving the public the power 

to influence key decisions and have 

adopted socially-oriented business 

models. This past year, for example, 

Iceland invited its citizens to submit 

suggestions and comments on a new 

draft constitution using Facebook, 

Twitter, and Flickr. In October, 66% 

voted in favour of basing the new 

constitution on this crowdsourced 

document. 


27

28 



door policy 

Visit Sweden / Curators of Sweden 

By handing over Sweden’s official Twitter 

account to ordinary citizens, Visit Sweden, (in 

the words of its CEO Thomas Brühl) demonstrated 

that ‘No one owns the brand of 

Sweden more than its people.’ The country’s 

tourist and travel information site collaborated 

with government agency the Swedish Institute 

and agency Volontaire Stockholm on the 

campaign, which saw Swedish citizens take 

weekly turns sharing their diverse opinions 

and recommendations on things to do in Sweden 

via the @Sweden Twitter handle. 

The project sparked controversy in early 

June when a Swedish woman managing the 

account posted messages about Jews and 

Nazis. The Cannes Jury nevertheless awarded 

Curators of Sweden the Cyber Grand Prix, 

commending Visit Sweden for not censoring 

the posts. Jury president Iain Tait said: ‘Allowing 

people to have the conversation out in the 

open felt like one of the facets of the case. It 

shows that they’re passionate about freedom 

of speech.’ 

twitter.com/sweden 

Magazine Luiza / Magazine Você 

Brazilian electronics and homeware retailer 

Magazine Luiza illustrated how social devices 

could play a fundamental role in driving business 

with its Magazine Você (translation ‘your 

store’) platform. Created with Ogilvy Etco, 

São Paulo, in partnership with Ogilvy Brasil, 

Magazine Você allows Facebook and Orkut users to create their own mini 

stores on the social networking sites, stocking them with up to 60 items 

from Magazine Luiza’s inventory that they can sell to friends. Each sale generates 

between 2.5% and 4.5% commission for the seller, with Magazine 

Luiza organising payment processing and deliveries. 

Within two weeks of launching, 20,000 people had opened stores online 

and the retailer saw 40% higher conversion rates than through traditional 

ecommerce stores. The 53,000 virtual stores have sold more than 10,000 

products between them. 

This genuinely social approach to online retail helped the brand solve its 

dilemma of how to increase sales without the expense of building and opening 

new stores. Contagious 33 features a case study on Magazine Luiza. 

www.magazineluiza.com.br 

www.magazinevoce.com.br 

Domino’s Pizza, Heineken, Walmart, Unilever / 

Open Innovation Platforms 

This year, a crop of major corporations developed platforms to seek public 

input on everything from product design to business strategies, demonstrating 

that no company is too large to tap into the spirit of collaboration. 

Domino’s continued the transparent approach it has taken since 2009’s 

Pizza Turnaround campaign by launching Think Oven (Contagious 30) – 

a Facebook platform crowdsourcing suggestions from menu ideas to the 

design of the ultimate pizza delivery vehicle. In a similar vein, Heineken 

solicited business innovations from beer drinkers through its own platform 

Ideas Brewery (Contagious 31). The brand requested suggestions on everything 

from reusing and recycling its bottles to reinventing the draught beer 

experience. The projects have helped Heineken and Domino’s strengthen 

their social relationships with customers by being seen to be listening. 

Walmart, through its digital division Walmart Labs, reached out to both 

established businesses and new innovators with its Get on the Shelf contest 

(Contagious 30), which uncovered the next products to be stocked 


28

Xxxxxxx / 



door policy 

by the US retail giant. More than 270,000 

people voted and 4,000 product designs 

were submitted. FMCG conglomerate Unilever 

also opened its doors to collaborators 

both great and small with its Unilever Open 

Innovation Submission Portal (run in partnership 

with global technology and IP marketplace 

yet2.com) (Contagious 30). Unilever 

gathered suggestions on how to grow 

its business and simultaneously reduce its 

environmental impact, asking potential collaborators 

to propose new ways of preserving 

food naturally and bringing safe drinking 

water to the world’s poorest people. The 

global company vowed to pursue the most 

promising partnerships – be they with small 

technology startups or major international 

organisations. 

www.thinkoven.com 

www.ideasbrewery.com 

Getontheshelf.com 

oiportal.yet2.com 

Harrods / Be the Buyer 

With its Be the Buyer project Harrods 

proved that even an established retailer 

could take an open and collaborative 

approach. The London department store 

streamed Burberry’s A/W 2012 runway 

show live via its Facebook page and invited 

fans to vote, via Likes, for their favourite catwalk 

look, with items from the most popular 

ensembles guaranteed to appear in store. 

Through opening up a previously closed 

part of its business – collection buying – 

to customers Harrods offered an exclusive 

experience. By Liking a product, people 

made a public statement of their interest in 

it, and (as outlined in Robert Cialdini’s classic 

book Influence) research shows that 

these types of commitments are far more 

likely to result in action, in this case going 

to Harrods to buy the item they’ve Liked. 


www.facebook.com/Harrods 


We’re expecting even companies in sectors 

traditionally known for keeping their 

processes closed to adopt social business 

initiatives. It might seem unlikely that a financial 

company would open up a credit card’s 

profit and loss statements to its customers, 

but that’s exactly what Barclaycard in the 

US did with its community-driven credit card 

Ring. Cardholders become members of an 

online community centred round a forum in 

which they can vote on product features 

and weigh-in on community discussions; 

they also benefit from the card’s financial 

success through the Giveback programme. 

Social business strategies can also enable 

brands to turn real customers into not 

just advocates but customer service representatives. 

Startup Needle is a live chat 

sales platform that pays a brand’s biggest 

fans $10 per hour and rewards them with 

products for answering customer queries. 

Needle’s clients include major brands 

Skullcandy, Under Armour and Urban 

Outfitters. Featured in Contagious 30. 

www.barclaycardring.com 

www.needle.com 


29

iMage sharing / 

the year of 

the photo Visual 

culture online evolved in 

2012, from taking photos to virtually 

socialising around them through 

a raft of image-based social networks. 

Brands spent 2012 tentatively figuring 

out how to use these expanding 

networks in their marketing (with mixed 

results), and considering how to monetise 

photos. Brands, said British ad 

agency Rabbit, need ‘not only a social 

media strategy, but a visual social media 

strategy as well.’ 

Two cultural milestones marked the 

Year Of The Photo: iconic film stock 

maker Kodak announced it was filing for 

bankruptcy in January. And Facebook’s 

$1bn, if-you-can’t-beat-them-join-them 

buyout of photo-sharing social network 

Instagram in April. 


30


the year of 

photo 

A Thousand Words / 

The growth of visual culture has been staggering. 

Late in 2011, blog 1000memories 

calculated 10% of all the photos ever snapped 

were taken that year. Three hundred million 

photos are uploaded to Facebook every day. 

Unsurprisingly, people care about photos a lot: 

a report from ROI Research found that 35% 

of respondents said that of the social media 

activity their friends post, they enjoy photos 

the most. For brands that matters a great deal. 

In the same study 44% said they were likely 

to engage with pictures posted by brands on 

social media, the highest of all options. 

But Facebook wasn’t the big news for 

image makers this year, as people gravitated 

to niche photo sharing sites in droves. Twin 

giants Tumblr and Instagram reached giddy 

new heights. The former hit 20 billion monthly 

page views, propelling it into the top 20 mostvisited 

US sites for the first time in September; 

the latter reached 100 million users the same 

month, double that of 12 months before. Newcomer 

Pinterest meanwhile rocketed to 25 

million users by November to become the third 

largest social network (from just 1.27 million in 

July 2011), earning a sky high estimated valuation 

of $7.7bn by Forbes in April. 

Show Me the Money / 

Having reached a critical mass, all three networks 

matured and started thinking about their 

business models, courting brands to turn the 

crowd into cash. Fresh from being named Apple’s App Of The Year 2011, 

Instagram hosted a rash of campaigns from every sector. Among others, 

apparel brand Levi’s ran a model search, jeweller Tiffany’s created custom 

filters for budding snappers and airline BMI launched a photo-based daily 

lottery. 

After having pretty much ignored brands, Tumblr changed tack in 2012. 

In June, it bolstered its team with brand strategists, and announced sponsorship 

packages for brands. Adidas Football was among the first to take 

advantage, posting videos and photos from its various celebrity endorsers. 

The New York-based company rounded off the year by launching Tumblr 

A-List, showing its intent to help brands make better use of the platform. 

Arguably the most financially tempting of the three for brands is Pinterest, 

which has the strongest intent graph (broadly speaking, people publicly 

posting stuff they want to buy). Its valuation was doubtless helped by stats 

from content discovery and sharing firm Shareaholic showing that the site 

drove more referral traffic than LinkedIn and Google+ combined. And those 

referrals spend a lot. A report from RichRelevance found average spend 

from retail shoppers from Pinterest was $169 dollars, compared with just 

$95 from Facebook, and $71 from Twitter. With around one third of brands 

already using the platform, according to Econsultancy, the launch of Pinterest 

for Business and brand pages in November was an obvious next 

step towards more official – and lucrative – participation. 

www.levistrauss.com/blogs/iamlevis 

statigr.am/flybmi 

tinyurl.com/WhatMakesLove 

adidasfootball.tumblr.com 

a-listpartners.tumblr.com 


31


the year of 

photo 

Social Shopping / 

Much like early efforts on Facebook and Twitter, brands that aligned 

their visual social media strategies with people’s behaviour on the 

platforms fared best. These either provided seamless added utility, 

or entertainment and relevant information. Many brands nonetheless 

simply posted ad-like content, missing the point entirely of a 

mood board to aggregate inspiration. 

Highlights on Pinterest included online fashion retailer ASOS’s 

simple strategy of using the site as an editorial newsfeed: posting 

catwalk trends, celebrity news and more across its 23 boards. 

Better still was fashion brand Oscar de la Renta’s campaign, in 

which it live-pinned the catwalk show of its bridal collection, tapping 

the site’s heavily female-skewed demographic and the large number 

of bridal-themed boards. 

Other smart executions created tools to maximise the convenience 

of the online pinboard: interiors magazine House Beautiful’s 

print campaign let people pin directly to Pinterest via their smartphone, 

for example. Gucci meanwhile cannily unveiled pinnable 

online banner ads that led to the brand’s ecommerce site. Online 

shoe retailer Zappos focused on Pinterest’s role as virtual wish list. 

It’s gearing up for the Christmas retail bonanza with a service called 

Pinpointing, which lets people enter a loved one’s Pinterest username 

to get gift suggestions based on their pinning activity. 

pinterest.com/asos 

pinterest.com/oscarprgirl/bridal 

pinterest.com/gucci 

pinpointing.apps.zappos.com 


While the big three visual social networks work on monetising 

content through brand partnerships, three youngsters have taken 

a more explicitly commercial approach from the off. Social shopping 

start up Svpply brings together influencers, retailers and shoppers. 

It provides a real-time stream of images of products curated 

by members from across the web, personalised to each user based 

on their social network on Facebook, who they follow on the site, 

and their interests. Influential Svpply’ers tapping the ‘Want’ button 

are then offered deals directly by retailers who have partnered with 

them. 

In September eBay bought Svpply to bolster its personalisation 

and curation capabilities. Reflecting the influence of visual social 

networks, the world’s biggest online marketplace has since subtly 

changed its homepage to ape Svpply and Pinterest’s personalised, 

image-rich aesthetic. Working along the same curation lines, Svpply 

rival Fancy has around two million users. Affiliated brands bid to sell 

people products they’ve earmarked on the site. 

Rather than build a proprietary system, in-stream commerce app 

Chirpify (launched this year) aims to piggyback Instagram’s API. It 

lets people enter their payment details, then buy directly from the 

Instragram stream by simply putting the word ‘Buy’ in the comments 

under any photo with the #InstaSale hashtag. 

svpply.com 

www.thefancy.com 

chirpify.com 


32

aMplified live / 

enhance, capture 

and share 

This year’s Olympics, the first 

‘social games’ (see Movements 

section) showed how audiences are 

increasingly creating and sharing 

content during live events. 

This kind of user-created activity can 

be amplified to heighten the experience 

of the people at the venue, as well as 

enabling them to share and amplify 

that experience to their wider social 

networks. Brands are now recognising 

that these additional, participatory layers 

can have a powerful impact on their 

businesses, and are starting to provide 

consumers with tools to heighten, 

capture and broadcast live experiences. 

It’s still early days for the Amplified Live 

trend, but below are some cases that 

should inspire wider creativity in this 

area in 2013. 


33

aMplified live / 

enhance capture 

and share 

Coldplay / Xyloband 

British rock band Coldplay has built a 

reputation for its colourful live shows, with 

lasers and balloons galore. For their 2012 

world tour, however, the band took this a 

step further by introducing Xylobands. 

Each ticket-holder was given a wristband 

containing LEDs and ultra-low-power 

microcontrollers. During various songs, 

these wristbands lit up in sync with the 

music and stage lights – effectively turning 

the audience into a visual extension of 

the show. The devices were designed by 

Devon-based RB Concepts, a company 

in which Coldplay has now invested. 

In a similar move, Disney handed out lightup 

Mickey Mouse ears for its Glow with the 

Show event at Disney California Adventure 

Park. The LED-filled ears were purchased 

beforehand and collectively synched to 

flash during the show. Both examples generated 

a visually stunning spectacle, heightening 

the audience’s enjoyment of, and 

interaction with, the performance. 

xylobands.com 

Dan Deacon App / 

For his 2012 tour, Baltimore-based musician 

Dan Deacon created an app that 

turns the audience’s smartphone into an 

extension of his live act. The application 

turns the speaker into an instrument, the flash into a strobe 

and the screen into part of the light show. 

The app doesn’t require data connectivity or a phone signal 

to operate, ensuring it will work in any venue. Fans install 

the app before the show and watch as their smartphone 

becomes an extension of the performance. The application 

is activated by audio signals emitted from the stage, which 

carry data to trigger these functions. 

Forget the flags at Glastonbury; holding mobile phones in 

the air has become a 21st century frustration for millions of 

gig-goers. Deacon’s app turns this (rather annoying) habit 

into one that amps up the collective excitement around the 

concert. Contagious 33. 

bit.ly/rQN0s7 

Beldent / Random Music Fest 

Mondelez (née Kraft)-owned chewing gum Beldent left the 

audience guessing at a festival held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 

on 29 September. Devised as part of the Project Fly 

innovation programme (which we’re proud to be a partner 

in), The Beldent Random Music Fest featured four stages 

with a lighthouse in the centre of the audience. This lighthouse 

randomly illuminated a particular stage, which was 

the cue for the next band to begin playing. A mobile app 

detected the live music and provided lyrics for the audience. 

People could also use the app to vote for their favourite band 

to perform an encore. More than 8,500 people attended the 

event, while 250,000 watched the live stream on Facebook. 

Featured in Contagious 33. 

www.beldent.com.ar 


34

Frontrow / 

At this year’s Vivid Live Festival in Sydney, Australia, Google’s Creative 

Lab together with Mark, Sydney launched Frontrow – an in-built functionality 

on YouTube enabling viewers to take photos whilst watching a live stream. 

Fans could pause the action, move the camera and zoom in and out to 

capture their favourite image. These photos could then be shared on social 

networks. Frontrow was first introduced for Australian band The Temper 

Trap’s headline performance inside the iconic Sydney Opera House. 

Rather than being passive viewers at home, fans from all over the world 

could create a unique image to save, and share. In just ten hours, the 

stream notched up 296,000 live views – 100 times the capacity of the 

concert hall. In addition to the photos taken inside the Opera House itself, 

a further 66,000 were captured by people watching the live-stream via 

YouTube, significantly increasing the event’s presence on social channels. 

www.youtube.com/user/sOHfestival 


Increasingly, brands will provide more effective tools for consumers to 

amplify their experiences at live events, and share these stories with their 

friends. Enabling consumers to relive events after they’ve taken place is 

another interesting avenue, which we saw in August with Blur’s Instagram 

feed. Those attending the band’s Hyde Park gig were encouraged to 

upload their images using the hashtag #blurhydepark2012. These were 

then streamed in a continuous, moving gallery on the band’s website, creating 

a visual record of the evening’s events. Aggregation platform This is 

Now took this a stage further, by collating geo-tagged Instagram photos 

from cities around the world, and displaying them in a live stream online. 

Developments in technology will also accelerate this trend, providing consumers 

with more seamless tools to capture and share their live experiences. 

Taking real-time life logging to its natural conclusion, for example, 

is Kickstarter project Memoto: an always-on buttonhole camera from a 

Swedish tech collective that takes two photos every minute, tagged by 

location for easy search. Contagious 33. 

Amplified Live will continue to spread beyond its obvious home of live 

music and sporting events. During September’s London Fashion Week, 

Topshop partnered with Facebook to launch Shoot the Show – a camera 

button embedded within a live stream window that lets viewers click to 

snap pictures of their favourite looks. These could then be shared directly 

with Facebook friends. Contagious 33. 

blur.co.uk/hydepark2012 

now.jit.su 

memoto.com 

www.facebook.com/Topshop 


35

screen grabs / 

creating, sharing, 

watching 

Twenty four miles. That’s how high 

the bar for branded content has 

now been set. 

Seven years and tens of millions of dollars 

in the making (the exact cost isn’t 

known), Red Bull’s Stratos project saw 

Felix Baumgartner free fall from space, 

breaking the sound barrier and a brace 

of world records. Coverage of the feat 

set a landmark for live streaming: eight 

million people tuned in. Contagious 33. 

Stratos represented, in some ways, 

how content this year changed: from 

recorded to live streaming video; and 

short-form amateur content to longerform, 

professionally-produced films. 


36



watching 

YouTube’s evolution to a professional network through a 

shiny new channel strategy, investment in content makers 

(the Creators Hub and London studio space) and $100m 

to production companies paid off. Seventy two hours of 

content are uploaded every minute to the site, but usage 

is changing. ComScore reported in May that people are 

watching fewer clips (they peaked at 21.8bn in January, 

going down to 15.3bn in April), but spending 57% more 

time watching clips. In short, engagement is up – which 

is great news for advertisers, 90% of whom agreed that 

content marketing would become more important in the 

next 12 months, according to an Econsultancy report 

from October. The bad news? Only 38% said they had a 

content marketing strategy in place. 

www.redbullstratos.com 

Going With the Flow / 

Live streaming and socialising online around content 

became more popular throughout 2012, a trend which 

Contagious identified as Digital Live. In the news realm, 

the Huffington Post launched a live, socially-led news 

service bringing people into the heart of breaking stories. 

Google pushed new social network Google+’s differentiator, 

Hangouts, hard, enlisting celebs, most notably 

President Obama, to appear via the service. Lots of 

brands joined in too, including online UK grocery delivery 

service Ocado, which streamed instructional cooking 

videos (Contagious 32), and fashion e-tailer ASOS, 

which let viewers quiz US fashion writer Indigo Clarke 

and model, blogger and IT girl Cory Kennedy about fashion 

and style. 

Niche streaming sites gained serious traction too. ‘People 

went from broad to narrow,’ senior YouTube exec 

Robert Kyncl told fellow Googlers in January in a speech about the future 

of TV and content, reported in The New Yorker. ‘We think they will continue 

to go that way – spend more and more time in the niches – because now 

the distribution landscape allows for more narrowness.’ A case in point is 

Twitch.TV, founded in 2011. The site lets videogamers stream their play 

live to eager videogame voyeurs, and hit 20 million monthly unique views 

in August. Average daily viewing time per user? A staggering 75 minutes. 

www.twitch.tv 

TV Everywhere / 

Video content began to untether further from TV, and onto web tablets 

and mobiles. A 14-country study from NPD found that tablet use for 

watching TV had doubled in 12 months (to around 15% of total viewing), 

and that 70% said they were watching video on devices that weren’t 

TVs. That was a boon to VOD services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon 

Prime. Despite downgrading forecasts, Netflix is projected to have added 

between 4.7 and 5.4 million subscribers this year as more cable customers 

cut the cord. And as LTE/4G mobile rolls out, expect broadcasters to 

look to more so-called TV Everywhere initiatives as a way to keep viewers 

watching. 

Among the most progressive, ESPN this year announced it was going 

‘mobile first’ with its content, while MTV’s Under The Thumb app from 

AKQA brought paid-for mobile content to US Millennials (Contagious 30). 

In the mainstream meanwhile, NBC’s streaming service for the Olympics 

saw seven million households stream via web and mobile apps. HBO, a 

groundbreaker with its TV Everywhere app HBO Go, even rattled cable 

companies by going it alone in Scandinavia with stand-alone, over-the-top 

streaming service HBO Nordic. See HBO case study in Contagious 31. 

www.mtvunderthethumb.com 

www.hbogo.com 


37

38 



watching 

Amateur Dramatics / 

Phones and tablets are also a platform on which videos 

can be created too, and brands are empowering people 

with the tools to become directors and distributors. 

Ever the smart marketer, Red Bull tapped into the long 

standing extreme sports tradition of videoing tricks with 

its Flow app, which let fans shoot, edit and share content 

direct from their mobile. LEGO’s Superheroes Movie 

Maker app, through Pereira & O’Dell, San Francisco, lets 

children direct stop motion shorts using their phone and 

favourite brick-based creations. Contagious 31. 

redbullflow.com 

dcuniversesuperheroes.lego.com 

Ones to Watch / Social Video 

Just as Instagram threatened the dominance of Facebook 

with a superior mobile interface and social sharing function 

for images, so YouTube is watching with interest the 

explosive rise of a new breed of video sites that do the 

same. GIFs had a brief flicker of popularity among brands 

early in the year, with VW, GE and even Burberry launching 

campaigns in the format, but it was ‘Instagram for video’ 

apps including SocialCam, Viddy, Klip and Threadlife 

that really came to prominence in 2012, through building 

in seamless social sharing. 

User numbers are difficult to pin down, but SocialCam 

claimed 16 million downloads in July (from a massive 54 

million peak), and Viddy 26 million users in May, according 

to The Wall Street Journal. At last count Red Bull, 

GE, Sierra Mist were among the brands experimenting on 

the platforms. However, YouTube needn’t worry just yet: no 

one truly cracked social video this year. 

socialcam.com / www.viddy.com 

www.klip.com / www.threadlife.com 

And Finally… / 

What round up of this year’s content couldn’t name-check 

South Korean rapper PSY’s Gangnam Style (c’mon, you 

know the one…) with its monstrous 830 million plus views? 

Born of the country’s industrialised pop music-making 

machine – K-Pop’s notorious ‘cultural technology’ programme 

– PSY deeply subverts its picture perfect boy and 

girl band output with his age (too old), look (too fat) and 

off-brand message (Gangnam residents are vapid and vulgar). 

But WHY the views, you ask? Perhaps it’s the global 

zeitgeist of lampooning the rich in a time of austerity. Or 

the cultural jolt of seeing a wry Asian piss-take of bombastic 

American music video clichés. Or maybe just the sheer 

bloody ridiculousness of it. More likely, like most virals, it’s a 

confluence of factors so mind-bogglingly complicated we’ll 

never properly fathom it. 

www.youtube.com/user/officialpsy 


38

augMented Media / 

layering content 

and utility 

Ninety nine years ago, German 

newspaper editor Wolfgang Riepl 

famously observed that new media 

doesn’t kill old media, but rather 

they converge. 

2012 saw a raft of mobile inventiveness 

in augmented reality and two-screen 

viewing behaviours. Smartphones are 

creating exciting new ways for brands 

to redraw the traditional purchase funnel 

for TV and print by adding contextual 

layers of information, utility and entertainment 

in real time. The promise for brands 

is, ultimately, cutting the time and friction 

between awareness and purchase to 

almost nothing. 


39



and utility 

That’s being led by a change in people’s mobile behaviour and 

how they interact with traditional media. Smartphone penetration 

tipped over 50% in the US this year, and tablets are set to outsell 

PCs next year, Microsoft’s VP web services Antoine Leblond 

told attendees at the TechEd conference in Amsterdam in June. 

Nielsen reported in April that 86% of US tablet owners and 84% 

of smartphone owners used a second screen at least once over a 

30-day period while watching TV, with as many as 45% doing so 

on a daily basis. 

In last year’s Most Contagious we looked at how audio recognition 

technology Shazam was moving from being just a music 

recognition service to being a trigger for TV content. Since then 

it’s bloomed: the app counts 250 million users and is growing at 

two million a week, with a staggering 54% trying to use the app to 

identify shows they’re watching, according to Shazam. That growth 

didn’t go unnoticed by broadcasters and brands; 160 channels in 

the US now make their content ‘Shazamable’, serving up trivia, info 

and links, as did almost half the advertisers at this year’s Super 

Bowl. 

TV wasn’t the only winner, though. Print evolved from a static 

medium to an interactive and changeable platform – a gateway to 

play games, watch entertainment content and buy products direct. 

Coca-Cola / Coke Polar Bowl 

More than 110 million fans tuned into the 2012 Super Bowl, and 

an estimated 60% watched the big game while using a second 

screen such as a mobile phone, or PC. To maximise its media 

investment, Coke, with Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, created a 

campaign that extended its presence beyond a standard TV spot, 

merging two-screen viewing with social media. 

Two TV spots aired during the game containing content specific 

to whichever team was in the lead. The ads, along with Facebook 

and outdoor messages, drove users to www.cokepolarbowl.com 

where two animated Coca-Cola polar bears reacted in real time 

to events happening during the game and the ad breaks, including 

placing their hands on their hearts during a patriotic Chrysler commercial 

and even leaving their seats during a Pepsi spot. 

The user experience was enhanced on social channels too: the 

bears took over Coke’s Twitter account and interacted directly with 

fans, answering questions and sharing pictures. Sharable highlights 

of the bears’ antics were uploaded to YouTube and Facebook, 

and the brand also streamed the bears’ reactions live via a 

Facebook app. 

Extending dwell times well beyond the TV spots, nine million consumers 

engaged with the bears for an average of 28 minutes and 

Twitter followers grew by 38% during a four-hour period. Contagious 

issue 30. 

www.cokepolarbowl.com 

MOVEMENTs purpose sErVicE data technology design social biz sharing amplified screens augmented retail personalise new loyalty payment sbpf



and utility 

California Milk Processor Board / 

Time to Go to Bed 

To increase milk consumption among Hispanic 

children, the California Milk Processor 

Board developed a campaign that used 

Shazam for TV to add interactive content 

to a traditional commercial. Time to Go to 

Bed, created by Grupo Gallegos, Huntington 

Beach, CA, featured an animated video 

showing droplets of milk helping a young 

boy get to sleep. The spot aired in the early 

evening on two of the largest Spanish language 

television networks, letting children 

know that it’s time to go to bed while also 

promoting a glass of milk and bedtime story. 

Parents could tag the TV spot using 

Shazam and receive a free download of 

a children’s book which, of course, integrated 

milk into the story. They could replay 

the video, leave comments, and share it 

with their friends on their social networks. 

120,000 hard copy books were distributed 

to paediatricians’ offices in California 

and were also available digitally via Facebook, 

where they were reported to be 

downloaded at a rate of 110 books a day. 

Featured in Contagious 33. 

tinyurl.com/timetogotobed 

Australian Defence Force / Mobile Medic 

The Australian Defence Force won a bunch 

of gongs this year for its inventive way of 

recruiting medical students for its Defence 

Force University Scholarship. Working with 

George Patterson Y&R, Melbourne, it created 

an augmented reality-based outdoor 

campaign that put students’ skills to the 

test. 

A series of posters featured patients in 

need of medical treatment. By pointing the 

app at the ad, students could virtually diagnose 

and treat the patients using tools such 

as CT scans, X-ray scans, stethoscopes, 


41

42 



and utility 

and ECG. After treating all of the patients, students entered their 

details via the app and those who performed best were contacted 

and offered a scholarship. 

Effectively acting as an entrance exam, Mobile Medic was a clever 

way of immersing students in the role of an army medical officer as 

well as testing their skill. It lives on as an education platform in all 

Defence Force Universities. Contagious issue 32. 

www.defence.gov.au 

IKEA / IKEA Catalogue 

This year IKEA added another dimension to its traditional print catalogue 

by presenting users with a layer of digital content accessible 

through a free augmented reality app. 

Scanning the catalogue with the app reveals a variety of features: 

users can interact with 3D product models, find out product details, 

view how-to videos and be inspired by photo galleries. 

IKEA worked with McCann, New York and Allofus, London, to 

redefine its iconic publication, which has 211 million copies in circulation, 

and extend its lifecycle throughout the year. Contagious 

issue 32. 

www.ikea.com 

ASOS / Scan to Shop 

British AR specialists Aurasma have been busy this year adding 

clouds of digital content and interactive functionality to a range of 

print publications from Tesco’s Real Food magazine to the entire 

September edition of American GQ. Contagious’ favourite was the 

ASOS Scan to Shop app, which enables the 450,000 UK subscribers 

of the retailer’s monthly magazine to access additional video 

content, product information, unlock exclusive offers and purchase 

items directly from the pages. 

bit.ly/scan-to-shop-itunes 

bit.ly/scan-to-shop-play 

www.aurasma.com 

Shortlist Magazine / 

Meanwhile, UK-based Shortlist Magazine partnered with AR company 

Blippar, which is reported to have more than 350,000 users in 

the UK, to create a special interactive gaming edition that featured a 

playable AR version of a 1980s computer game on the cover. 

Inside the magazine, exclusive video interviews, interactive polls, 

competitions and podcasts could be experienced on a phone via 

Blippar. Users could also ‘blipp to buy’ items straight from the 

pages of the magazine. 

Blippar recorded 229,178 blipps of the issue from more than 

50,000 unique readers, who viewed and played with interactive 

content for over six minutes each, on average. 

blippar.com 


42

etail / shopping 

gets connected 

In Burberry’s majestic new retail 

space, it was the screen – not in 

cinematic portrait format, but iPadesque 

landscape – that epitomised 

the convergence of online and 

offline shopping in 2012. 

This year saw retailers bring social, 

mobile and web into the physical space, 

embedding products with RFID chips, 

sensors to detect shoppers and personalise 

content, frictionless payment, and 

layers of online functionality via mobile 

apps and services. 


43

etail / 

shopping gets 

connected 

Why? Because shoppers no longer see physical, technological 

and geographical boundaries, and retailers needs 

to adapt to changing behaviour. According to IBM’s 2012 

Winning Over The Empowered Consumer report, 25% 

of people use three or more technologies to shop; meanwhile, 

mobile sales for Black Friday exceeded 16% this 

year, up from 9.8% in 2011, also according to IBM. 

The smartest retailers are rethinking the customer journey 

– from initial awareness and product research to in-store 

experience, purchase and post-sales – seamlessly bringing 

together the best of offline and online to make a compelling, 

entertaining and frictionless shopping experience. 

C&A / Fashion Likes 

The familiar metric of Facebook Likes was given a social 

twist when DDB Brasil repurposed it into an interactive 

rating system for its clothes. To kick-start the idea, the 

new season’s C&A fashion collection was previewed on 

the brand’s Facebook page. Users were encouraged to 

Like their favourite items, and after a week of online voting 

the collection finally hit the rails at C&A’s flagship store 

in São Paulo – with one important difference. Each item 

was displayed on a hanger that showed a running total of 

the Likes it had earned, changing the scores in real time 

as fans continued to vote online. Social proof moved from 

Facebook into the real world. Contagious 31. 

www.facebook.com/ceaBrasil 

Meat Pack / Hijack 

If there’s one thing we all like, it’s a bargain. Working with 

4AM Saatchi & Saatchi, Guatemala, sneaker retailer Meat 

Pack enhanced its existing app with a time-sensitive discount 

feature that used GPS to map the stores of rival 

brands like adidas, Nike and Puma. Fans 

with the app checking out competitors’ 

wares were offered a 99% reduction on 

trainers from Meat Pack – but with every 

passing second, the discount got 1% 

smaller. To get the best deal, the customer 

had to drop everything and run. 

Meat Pack Hijack is fascinating because it 

neatly combines location, connectivity and 

strategic discounting with the motivational 

power of a relentlessly ticking clock. Retail 

with jeopardy? We’re in! And so were the 

600 customers the brand hijacked from its 

competitors in just one week. Contagious 

32. 

www.facebook.com/themeatpack 

Audi City / 

Buying a new car is less impulsive than buying 

a new pair of trainers, but the impact 

of digital on that process is driving key 

changes across the sector. This year saw 

the launch of Audi City, a small-footprint 

digital showroom in London’s West End. 

Visitors use multi-touch screen tables (created 

by Razorfish International) to design 

their ideal Audi from more than 3.5 million 

possible configurations. Their creation can 

be viewed, life-sized, from all angles on 

huge HD screens, and can be seen ‘driving’ 

through virtual landscapes. 

That vivid first impression is more important 

than ever. Research by Jaguar Land 


44

Rover discovered that in 2000 people 

made an average of 7.5 trips to dealerships 

before buying a car. By 2010 that 

figure had shrunk to 1.3 visits. The impact 

of each encounter gains significance. Audi 

City combines the flexibility of digital carconfiguration 

with the sense of high-impact 

retail theatre that a brand-controlled environment 

of a store can offer. It’s a strategy 

the brand clearly believes in: Audi plans 20 

further such destinations around the world 

by 2015. Contagious 32. 

tinyurl.com/audicity 

Neiman Marcus / NM Service App 

With a long standing reputation for customer 

service, high end US department 

store Neiman Marcus spent the summer 

trialling a smartphone app designed to 

enhance the relationship between sales 

staff and shoppers. The free NM Service 

app allowed users to see which staff were 

on duty, and set up meetings with their preferred 

associate. The opt-in service notified 

staff when participating customers entered 

the store, displaying their Facebook profile 

picture (to help assistants identify them) 

and also their purchase history. Shoppers 

could use the app to access product information 

and to tag their favourite items, helping 

staff make more accurate recommendations 

for individual customers. 

So far San Francisco-based Signature 

Labs, the clienteling specialists behind the 

app, are maintaining an enigmatic silence 

about results. This much we know: the Luxury 

Institute, New York, recently published 

the findings of its 2012 Luxury Customer 

Index survey, which found that across categories 

70% of ultra-wealthy customers 

say their relationship with a specific sales 

associate causes them to spend more. 

Confirmation, if it were needed, that it pays 

to know your customers. Contagious 31. 

www.getsignature.com 

Topshop Unique / London Fashion Week 

Understanding its young clientele is a 

major obsession for Topshop, the standard- 

bearer for British high street fashion. The 

Customise the Catwalk feature for its 

London Fashion Week show allowed web 

users to not only select and order key looks 

and accessories, but also to change the 

colour of their preferred option before buying. 

Additionally, Shoot the Show let viewers 

snap and share pictures of their favourite 

looks direct from the show’s live stream. 

Music and make-up from the show could 

also be bought straight away, with online 

tutorials available to help customers replicate 

the beauty looks created for the show. 

Topshop’s new CMO Justin Cooke – 

former vice president of PR at Burberry 

– described the show as ‘social entertainment’, 

but Topshop is not innovating for the 

sake of it. Cooke is very clear on the value 

of this heady mix of social, entertainment 

and commerce: ‘By putting our customers 

in control of the live experience, they 

show us what they love, how they want to 

consume information, the ways they like to 

share and more.’ Contagious 33. 

www.topshop.com 


45

etail / 

shopping gets 

connected 

Burberry World Live / 

It may have been a big, exciting year for retail generally, but it’s 

also been a big, exciting year for Britishness; in the launch of Burberry’s 

new flagship London store, those factors collided to headlinegrabbing 

effect. The Regent Street space has been redesigned as 

a physical manifestation of the brand’s online experience, from its 

acoustic music sessions to Burberry Bespoke and the Art of the 

Trench. 

Burberry World Live will not only host fashion events, concerts 

and performances, but blurs the boundaries between online and 

offline retail. RFID tags in the garments trigger relevant multimedia 

content, with mirrors turning into screens when entering changing 

rooms. On the shop floor, the same system cues making-of videos 

when certain screens in the space are approached. Sales staff use 

iPads to get real-time stock updates and product specifications, 

and clienteling software is used to access customers’ purchase history 

and shopping preferences. 

The democratisation of fashion may be a keenly debated topic 

right now, but what has set Burberry apart from most luxury brands 

is the authenticity of the delight it takes in embracing tech and the 

passion of younger consumers. Contagious 33. 

uk.burberry.com 


46

personalisation / 

here’s to you 

‘P&G’s vision is to build our brands 

through lifelong, one-to-one relationships 

in real-time with every 

person in the world,’ said P&G’s 

global marketing and brand building 

officer, Mark Pritchard, in 

March. ‘It means shifting from mass 

broadcasting, to creating more 

personal, one-to-one conversations.’ 

Welcome to the age of mass 

personalisation. 

Underpinning personalisation is of 

course personal data, and vast amounts 

of it. Boston Consulting Group’s report 

in May said globally people send ten billion 

text messages and make one billion 

posts to a blog or social network. There 

are six billion mobile phones, of which 

one billion are smartphones. That’s led 

to data-driven stories, products and 

even services. ‘Data,’ claims Daniel 

Stein, founder of digital agency EVB, ‘is 

the new creative brief.’ 


47



But what about privacy? It seems that our growing personal data 

literacy means people are becoming more receptive to a new value 

exchange: a recent Accenture study found 61% of online shoppers 

would trade privacy for personalisation, and three in four shoppers 

actually prefer retailers that use personal information to improve 

shopping experiences. 

Our relationship with technology is changing, too, as digital personal 

assistants like Siri become more sophisticated. We’re more 

dependent on it, and brands like Google are starting to build digital 

tools like Google Now based on our personal data to pre-empt our 

every need. 

AXE Anarchy / Personalised graphic novel 

If a brand seeks out your creative input, recreates your profile picture 

to flattering effect and integrates you into an online graphic 

novel, wouldn’t you at least try the product? This strategy paid 

dividends for Unilever when it rewarded AXE’s millennial target 

audience with its 15 megabytes of fame. To promote Anarchy, the 

brand’s first unisex variant, Razorfish, New York, partnered with 

Aspen Comics on creating a crowd-sourced online graphic novel 

starring AXE Facebook fans and Twitter followers. An initial trailer, 

which attracted 3.2 million views, invited the 2.3 million-strong 

social media fan-base to get involved. After opting in, people 

posted 15,249 story suggestions to help steer the plot, with 34% 

coming from females. Fans were rewarded by seeing animated versions 

of themselves in the graphic novel which depicted scientists 

attempting to hit upon a formula for attraction. Since launching in 

January 2012, Anarchy has become the best-selling body spray in 

the US. Take that, Old Spice. Contagious 30. 

www.axeanarchy.com 

Hellmann’s / Recipe Receipts 

In a smart use of real-time data, Hellmann’s used personalised, 

persuasive tactics to encourage Brazilian consumers to realise that 

mayonnaise is more versatile than just a condiment for sandwiches 

and potato salad. Using point-of-sale software, the brand generated 

personalised recipes based on the products people bought 

in 100 outlets of the country’s St Marche supermarkets. If a shopper 

put Hellmann’s in their basket, they received a customised till 

receipt which doubled up as a recipe card. The recipe included 

Hellmann’s mayonnaise along with other products they were purchasing. 

In-store signage informed shoppers: ‘If there’s Hellmann’s 

in your cart, there’s a surprise in your receipt.’ The campaign, 

through Ogilvy, São Paulo, generated a 44% rise in sales within 

a month. ‘We wanted to prove that Hellmann’s can be used daily 

in basic consumption without asking people to change anything in 

their shopping carts,’ Ogilvy account supervisor Daniela Glicenstajn 

told Contagious. Contagious 31. 

www.hellmanns.com.br 

Carvalho Hosken / The Social Home Tour 

Visits to new-build homes can be tricky; it’s hard to imagine living 

in a show-house because they feel so impersonal and generic. So 

Rio-based estate agency Carvalho Hosken used Facebook content 

to personalise display homes for potential buyers, helping them to 

visualise themselves in the property. Via Artplan in Rio de Janeiro, 

Carvalho Hosken decorated apartments with digital picture frames 

containing personal photos from Facebook as potential buyers 

looked around. They saw their favourite films playing on the TV, 

also selected from their Facebook profiles, and heard their mostloved 

tunes. While inside, they received an unexpected phone call 

targeting them with a special offer. The social home tour helped to 

convert 28% of visits into sales, a rate that was three times higher 

than usual. Contagious 32. 

www.carvalhohosken.com.br 


48



Bank of America / BankAmeriDeals 

In an initiative that is not only personalised, but frictionless too, Bank 

of America launched a new deals service, BankAmeriDeals, which 

gives customers targeted discounts and offers at the stores and 

restaurants they regularly visit. Customers accept the offers they 

want and typically receive a discount through their online banking 

service. When they make a purchase in-store with a Bank of America 

debit or credit card, they don’t even need to hand over a coupon: 

the cash is automatically refunded into their account the next 

month. This eliminates the need for physical coupons or any additional 

interaction with individual retailers, as well as fulfilling Bank 

of America’s objectives to increase account and card activity and 

reinforce existing customer relationships. Contagious 30. 

www.bankofamerica.com 


Where is personalisation headed? Ford’s partnership with locationaware 

alerts startup Roximity shows how collaboration is bringing 

convenience: Ford drivers can now benefit from a personalised incar 

service which sends – via their dashboard’s telemetry system – 

notifications of nearby deals that tally with their particular interests. 

When better to serve deals than when you’re close, and mobile? 

On that note, expect Google Now to gather momentum. The 

search giant’s personal assistant incorporates data from your browsing 

history, location and time of day to help you plan your life better. 

Google Now might even suggest a gym visit in your lunch hour, or 

an alternative commuter route to avoid a delay (Contagious 33). 

Meanwhile, Google Field Trip offers an unprompted personalised 

history lesson about the places around you via your smartphone. 

However, you can moderate how much or how little it serves up, limiting 

it to just restaurant reviews, for instance. This is pivotal to personalisation: 

the brands that allow the users to control how, when 

and with what they are targeted will be 2013’s success stories. 

beta.roximity.com 

www.google.com/landing/now 

tinyurl.com/Google-Field-Trip 


49

the new loyalty/ 

services not 

scheMes 

While the loyalty scheme is in 

demise, loyalty services are gaining 

momentum. Forward-thinking 

companies are using technology to 

incorporate loyalty mechanics across 

a wide range of brand touchpoints. 

Traditionally tied to product transactions, 

loyalty is now being mapped to experience 

and engagement. A number of 

brands and apps are rewarding a range 

of everyday activity, from watching TV 

(Viggle) to sharing status updates (Nike). 

With smartphone penetration skyrocketing, 

mobile is a key force behind this 

unfettered approach to loyalty. Almost 

a quarter of the top 100 brands in the 

2012 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty 

Engagement Index enable consumer 

engagement via mobile. 

bit.ly/brandkeys-index 


50

the new loyalty / 

services not 

scheMes 

Shopkick / 

Spurring a revolution in location-based loyalty, Shopkick rewards customers 

simply for walking into a store. The mobile app, which has partnered 

US retailers like Target and Macy’s, also tracks in-store activities, allowing 

shoppers to accumulate points, called ‘kicks’, through actions like trying on 

clothes. These can be exchanged for a wide variety of rewards such as gift 

vouchers or meals. 

A recent redesign based around Pinterest-inspired ‘lookbooks’ has 

extended Shopkick’s functionality so people can now be rewarded for ‘preshopping’ 

activity such as browsing products and saving items in which 

they’re interested. 

These new features have bolstered engagement levels. At current rates, 

Shopkick will reach one billion product views within 12 weeks. The app 

also reached one million verified monthly walk-ins to partner stores in October 

this year. 

Shopkick has quickly become the third most-used shopping app after 

eBay, Amazon and Groupon, according to Nielsen, and offers a compelling 

shortcut for retailers keen to avoid the costs and hassle of developing their 

own reward app. 

www.shopkick.com 

Starbucks / Passbook 

One of the major stories to come out of the launch of Apple’s iOS 6 this 

year (apart from its geographically-challenged Maps) is Passbook. The new 

feature is a form of mobile wallet that stores everything from movie tickets 

to loyalty cards. Geolocation means Passbook pulls up the relevant pass 

at the appropriate place, taking much of the pain out of collecting points. 

As mobile money develops, loyalty and payment mechanics are merging, 

making loyalty more frictionless. While the iPhone 5 doesn’t incorporate 

a payment mechanism like an NFC chip, Passbook can make payments 

by proxy. Starbucks, for example, allows customers to store their digital 

Starbucks card in Passbook, so they collect loyalty points and pay with 

one scan of their phone. Notably, Starbucks customers can also pay via the 

Square Wallet app, which also supports Starbucks’ loyalty program and 

geo-fenced pop-ups (see Payment section). 

While paying with Passbook is still in its early stages, it is likely that it will 

soon become widespread. It is expected, for example, that Apple customers 

will soon be able to scan Passbook-enabled Apple Store gift cards. 

www.apple.com/ios/whats-new 


51

the new loyalty / 

services not 

scheMes 

Nike Hong Kong / Make it Count 

Alongside mobile, social media is a key 

driver of the new loyalty. Rethinking the idea 

of loyalty schemes for the social web, Nike 

launched a campaign earlier this year that 

rewards people for engagement and social 

amplification. 

Created by Razorfish in Hong Kong as part 

of the wider global Make it Count campaign, 

amateur athletes can undertake a series of 

missions on the Nike Hong Kong Facebook 

page. However, users have to then share the 

completed mission online using the #makeitcount 

hashtag in order to accumulate points 

that can later be exchanged for Nike prizes. 

The initiative is an acknowledgement by Nike 

that loyalty encompasses far more than purchase, and an astute use by the 

brand of existing mechanisms for sharing and posting to reward loyal fans. 

Social amplification is becoming an increasingly important variable in the 

new loyalty, as brands and consumers become more acutely aware of its 

value. Virgin America, for example, allows travellers to earn loyalty points 

each time they post a status update or take a photo at a Virgin America 

airport terminal or baggage claim via loyalty app Topguest. 

www.nike.com.hk/local/makeitcount 

www.topguest.com 

Kiip / 

The new loyalty encompasses a fresh approach to the idea of rewards. One 

of the main players turning the idea of loyalty points on its head is mobile 

app Kiip, which focuses on tying reward to moments of achievement. 

Kiip was initially set up to offer real-world rewards for virtual achievements 

in mobile games but is now significantly widening its focus. One of its most 

successful campaigns to date has been with PepsiCo fitness water brand 

Propel, which partnered with the platform 

in April to reward users who logged fitness 

achievements in apps such as MapMyRUN. 

According to figures released in October, 

the campaign increased purchase intent by 

51%. Kiip has also just introduced iPhone 

Passbook integration, so rewards coupons 

can now be sent directly to Passbook and 

redeemed in-store. 

It seems that reaching out to consumers 

during more meaningful moments pays off. 

According to Kiip, advertisers benefit from 

initial engagement rates of 18 to 22% for 

their rewards and a 50% engagement rate 

for users who have previously redeemed a 

reward. 

Having raised $11m in Series B funding earlier this year, it’s likely that 

Kiip will become more prolific in 2013. The company has said it will soon 

announce a major development that brings mobile rewards and physical 

redemption at point of sale systems closer than ever before. 

www.kiip.me 

Safeway / just for U 

The new loyalty goes beyond one-size-fits all: a study by the CMO Council 

suggests that 54% of people would defect from their loyalty programme if 

it didn’t provide tailor-made, relevant offers. 

With personalisation becoming a growing consumer demand, companies 

are turning to technology to create more one-to-one relationships with customers. 

US supermarket chain Safeway is one of the biggest retailers to be 

doing this on a major scale, with the launch of a loyalty programme built on 

personalised pricing; ‘just for U’ mines your shopping history and habits and 

serves you tailored prices via a desktop and mobile app. 

www.safeway.com 


52

payMent / 

the changing 

way we pay 

With financial transactions 

increasingly digital, cash is 

no longer king. 

Last year the conversations 

about digital money revolved 

around NFC (near-field 

communication), due in part 

to Google’s introduction of its 

NFC-based Google Wallet 

solution. But while NFC is 

gaining pace, it is doing so more 

slowly than initially expected. 

However, other technology is 

springing up and changing the 

way we pay. 


53

payMent / the 

changing way we 

pay we pay 

Much of this change is driven by 

smartphones. Mobile money is far from 

being reliant on NFC, as the success 

of Square demonstrates. The disruptive 

startup has had a boost this year 

following a $25m investment from 

Starbucks. The Square Mobile Wallet 

can now be used to pay at 7,000 Starbucks 

stores across the US. And just 

this month it announced that it’s processing 

$10bn in payments annually. 

As people learn to pay via multiple 

devices, they are also becoming 

more open to new units of exchange, 

ranging from in-game virtual currency 

to social currency. 

www.google.com/wallet 

squareup.com 

Wallaby / 

Wallets bursting with multiple credit 

cards have become emblematic of 

our times. According to Experian’s 

‘National Score Index’, 10% of Americans 

have more than ten credit cards. 

Having so many payment options 

means consumers are rarely using 

them in the most efficient way – a phenomenon 

that Wallaby aims to counteract 

through the creation of ‘one card 

to rule them all.’ The service solves the 

conundrum of which credit card to 

use to maximise savings and points by 

letting people add credit cards to a centralised 

system. When paying online or in 

store, Wallaby automatically sifts through 

the users’ cards, and crunches which one 

should be used to maximise returns. 

The way in which Wallaby helps consolidate 

and organise multiple payment offerings 

is analogous to Passbook (see Loyalty 

section). It points to a future where payment 

and loyalty increasingly converge and 

become more frictionless. 

www.walla.by 

Barclays / Pingit 

While banks tend to be known for making 

life more complicated, Barclays in the UK 

released an app in February that makes 

transferring money incredibly simple. Pingit 

lets users transfer up to £300 a day to 

other people using just their mobile phone 

number. The average order value of each 

transaction is £70, higher than current 

NFC mobile payment services, which are 

usually capped at about £20. 

Mobile banking has being growing exponentially 

but this has largely come from 

developing countries, where access to 

formal financial services is lower than in the 

West. Last year, for example, Visa aped the 

success of mobile money transfer service 

M-Pesa by introducing a mobile payment 

service in Africa for people without bank 

accounts. 

Pingit has had an enthusiastic reception 

in the UK, which could well set a precedent 

for future mobile banking offerings in 

this market. Within two days of the service 

launching, 20,000 users had signed up and 

it has now attracted more than 1.2 million 

downloads. Barclays claims that a significant 

amount of these are non-customers, 

with Pingit now helping Barclays to acquire 

more new customers than any of its other 

online acquisition tools. 

www.barclays.co.uk/pingit 

Barclaycard / PayBand 

While Barclays’ Pingit works via a mobile 

phone, Barclaycard has been developing 

frictionless payment solutions in more unusual 

contexts. 

At this summer’s London Wireless music 

festival, Barclaycard debuted PayBand, 

an NFC-enabled wristband that allowed 

festival-goers to make cashless payments. 

People signed up for a free PayBand, 

loaded it with up to £250 a day, then wore 

it around the festival site, negating the need 

to carry extra cash or cards. To pay for items 

from stallholders users simply swiped the 

band on a card payment system. 

PayBand is an imaginative evolution of 

Barclaycard PayTag, a credit card sticker 

that, when stuck to a mobile handset, enables 

contactless payments. Both PayTag 

and PayBand demonstrate that NFC isn’t 


54

payMent / the 

changing way we 

pay 

tied to smartphones, but can be used creatively 

to solve pain points in the payment 

process in a wide range of contexts. Featured 

in Contagious issue 32. 

www.barclaycardpayband.com 

Digital Currencies / Bitcoin 

As people grow more open to new ways of 

paying, we’re seeing a rise in the ubiquity 

and legitimacy of virtual currencies. One of 

the most prominent of these is Bitcoin: a 

peer-to-peer digital currency that has been 

called ‘potentially world-changing’ by eminent 

cryptographers. 

Bitcoin is not overseen by any central 

banking authority; instead the network 

regulates transactions and issuances. This 

means it is highly anonymous, which has led 

to it becoming something of an unofficial 

currency of the underground economy. One 

Carnegie Mellon study estimates that $2m 

a month in Bitcoin drug sales take place on 

the online marketplace Silk Road. 

Despite its dodgy heritage, Bitcoin seems 

slowly to be moving into the mainstream. 

WordPress, which powers the blog platform 

for the likes of the New York Times and 

CNN, has just started to accept Bitcoins 

and Reddit has suggested that it might 

begin transacting in Bitcoins for subscriptions 

to its premium Reddit Gold service. 

The appeal of Bitcoins for these platforms is 

that, unlike credit cards and PayPal, which 

block payments from a number of countries, 

Bitcoin enables instant payments to anyone, 

from anywhere in the world. 

Bitcoin may also become more established 

via a physical presence. In August 

the company announced it was working on 

a BitInstant Paycard: a prepaid debit card 

that would let users spend their Bitcoins 

at any store that accepts MasterCard. The 

debit card is yet to materialise, but with virtual 

currencies becoming a larger part of 

the payment landscape it seems unlikely to 

be long before such a card, be it linked to 

Bitcoins or not, exists. 

bitcoin.org 

www.bitinstant.com 

Google / Physical Wallet 

As virtual currencies like Bitcoin look to gain 

a real-world presence it also appears that 

Google may be issuing a physical credit 

card. The Google Wallet card, which would 

look and operate like other credit cards, 

would act as a complement to the Google 

Wallet mobile payment system. 

News about the Google Wallet leaked in 

November and at the time of writing there 

are still few details available. The move 

can be seen, however, as Google trying 

to establish a stronger brand in the payment 

space while NFC remains far from 

mainstream. 

Last year the conversation around digital 

money focused on the ‘digital.’ However, 

as we move towards a more fluid approach 

to payment, the landscape is increasingly 

being characterised by a digital/physical 

blur. Just as we no longer think of ‘digital 

media’ and simply think of ‘media’, ‘digital 

money’ will eventually become just ‘money.’ 

www.google.com/wallet 


55

sMall but 

perfectly forMed / 

little brands, 

big thinkers 

Although many established companies 

strive to act like a startup, the 

only genuine way to experience this 

kind of nimble, rapid and adaptive 

way of working is to actually launch 

a new venture. 

This section celebrates some of the 

great thinkers and agile disruptors that 

Contagious has featured this year. 

One sector-agnostic trait that many of 

the companies below have employed is 

the subscription model, which relies on 

cutting friction from more mundane purchases, 

and providing a fantastic service 

at a great price point. 


56

sbpf / little 

brands, big 

thinkers 

Another important shift is that social responsibility 

is no longer just a bolt-on feature, but is 

becoming part of the fabric of some of the best 

new businesses. And people want to buy from 

companies that care. This year’s Edelman’s 

goodpurpose study of 8,000 consumers across 

16 markets found that if price and quality is 

equal, social purpose is the most important factor 

determining people’s purchasing decisions. 

Sir Richard’s / 

US condom brand Sir Richard’s impressed us 

this year by exemplifying the Contagious mantra 

of ‘useful, relevant, entertaining’, combining 

chemical-free contraceptives with a socialimpact 

mission, all brought to life through some 

great marketing. The brand’s Vagina Rules 

campaign, for example, featured an online film 

of women explaining what they wouldn’t put 

in their vaginas (‘Investment bankers, roadies, 

street performers...’) to highlight the product’s 

vegan-friendly and PETA-certified credentials. 

The brand’s wider social mission takes the 

form of Sir Richard’s donating a condom to a 

developing country, such as Haiti, for every one 

bought. However, the process isn’t quite as 

functional as ‘buy one, give one’. The company 

worked with Haitian artists and musicians to 

create a stand-alone brand called KORE (a Haitian 

slang term roughly translating as ‘I have your 

back’) appropriate for that country. Speaking to 

Contagious earlier in the year, Sir Richard’s MD, 

Jim Moscou, told us how it allowed people to 

‘use their product choice to create a positive 

impact on the world’. 

The product went to market in 2010, securing 

distribution across the US in 2011. It subsequently 

launched in the UK during October 

2012 and aims to expand into mainland Europe 

and Russia in the near future. Contagious 33. 

www.sirrichards.com 

Hiut Denim / 

The South Wales-based denim company, 

founded by David and Clare Hieatt, previously 

of clothing brand howies, started crafting its 

high-end, handmade jeans earlier this year, resurrecting 

the denim industry in Cardigan, Wales. 

Every pair comes with a unique code known 

as a HistoryTag. This allows owners to follow 

the production of their jeans in the factory and 

then build up a presence for the jeans online, 

by tweeting or tagging images on Flickr and Instagram 

with their code, adding their own experiences 

to the lifeline of the jeans. We all associate 

certain songs, scents and objects with significant 

life experiences and love how Hiut is enabling 

people to attach their own memories to a physical 

product. Welcome to the internet of things. 


hiutdenim.co.uk 


57

sbpf / little 

brands, big 

thinkers 

Who Gives A Crap / 

One of the most remarkable projects arising from 

crowdfunding platform Indiegogo this year is Who 

Gives A Crap, a subscription-based toilet paper brand 

making a direct attempt to solve sanitation issues by 

donating 50% of its profits to help build waste facilities 

in the developing world. The company was first 

established in late 2010 by social entrepreneur Simon 

Griffiths, former Method designer Daniel Alexander 

and strategist Jehan Ratnatunga. 

Who Gives A Crap has successfully proven that a 

commodity product like toilet paper does not need to 

be dull and fluffy, or without a grander sense of purpose. 

The company raised AU$66,548 (US$69,000) 

in just 50 hours in July 2012, partially thanks to Griffiths 

staging a ‘sit in’, live-streaming himself on the 

toilet until the company hit its funding goal. 

The organisation is currently taking pre-orders from 

Australia and the US. Contagious 33. 

whogivesacrap.org 

Percolate / 

How often have you been annoyed by bland and 

generic posts on a brand’s social media pages along 

the lines of ‘Like this funny cat video if you also like 

cats’? Branded content has been one of the most 

hotly discussed topics in ad land this year. Percolate, a 

New York startup founded by former Barbarian Group 

strategy director Noah Brier and former VP of publishing 

at Federated Media James Gross, has developed 

smart algorithms to help blue chip clients source 

brand-relevant content, from interesting studies to 

sector-specific news. 

This then enables brands to use this content as the 

basis for their messages across social media, helping 

them navigate the potentially tricky waters in a more 

relevant and meaningful way. Percolate received 

$1.5m in funding late last year and secured another 

$9m, in November. We’re looking forward to seeing 

what Percolate will get up to next, given that 90% of 

respondents to a content marketing survey by Econsultancy 

(October 2012) said that branded content 

will become increasingly important over the next 12 

months. Contagious 33. 

percolate.com 

Dollar Shave Club / 

Dollar Shave Club burst onto the subscription services 

scene with a standout convenience service that 

skilfully does away with the hassle and cost of buying 

razors. Its witty launch video featuring charismatic cofounder 

and improv comic Michael Dubin clocked up 

more than seven million views while challenging the 

big players in the male grooming market (‘Do you like 

spending $20 a month on brand-name razors? Nineteen 

go to Roger Federer.’). 

After receiving initial funding of $1.1m in March this 

year, Dollar Shave Club secured an additional $9.8m 

in November. Given the monthly subscription options 

at $1, $6 or $9, this is a great vote of confidence for 

the company and its founders Dubin and Mark Levine. 


www.dollarshaveclub.com 

Raspberry Pi / 

Raspberry Pi was cited as a ‘one to watch’ in the 

technology section of 2011’s Most Contagious report 

before its release. Since going on general sale in 

February, the credit-card sized computer has been 

stocked by major high street electronics retailers and 

is expected to sell more than one million units by February 

2013. Founder Eben Upton’s Cambridge-based 

organisation aimed to address a decline in uptake of 

computer science classes in schools by developing 

a programmable mini computer that could easily be 

wiped and rebooted. 

Since its launch the device has featured in hack days 

from Scotland to SXSW, rebooting maker culture. 

Raspberry Pi has been approached by hospitals and 

museums; developing countries are hoping to benefit 

from the device thanks to its low cost (between $25- 

35) and ease of use. The registered charity reports that 

some universities are providing their freshmen with a 

Raspberry Pi whilst even seven-year-olds are using it 

to program games themselves. 

www.raspberrypi.org 


58

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Your subscription will include four issues of 

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Offer ends on the 11 January 2013

Most contagious awards / 2012 

The Most Contagious awards are bestowed by Contagious. 

The criteria are simple. They are awarded for ideas and innovations that the 

Contagious editorial team have judged to be the world’s most contagious 

ideas of the year in key business categories. 

Winners / 

Most Contagious Purpose / Safaricom / Daktari 1525 

Agency / Squad Digital, Nairobi 

www.safaricom.co.ke 

Most Contagious Technology / Google / Project Glass 

plus.google.com/+projectglass/posts 

Most Contagious Design / Heatherwick Studio / Olympic Cauldron 

www.heatherwick.com 

Most Contagious Retail / Audi City 

Agencies / Razorfish, SapientNitro, Designit, RTT, Valtech 

microsites.audi.com/audi-city/en/index.html 

Most Contagious Story of the Year / Red Bull Stratos / Mission to the Edge of Space 

Red Bull Media House, Riedel Communications, Wuppertal, Flightline Films, Las Vegas, 

3G Communications, Glen Burnie 

www.redbullstratos.com 

Small But Perfectly Formed (Company Award) / Raspberry Pi Foundation 

www.raspberrypi.org 

Nominations 

Purpose / Renault MOBILIZ, Safaricom Daktari 1525, Tata Docomo BloodLine Club 

Technology / Baxter (Rethink Robotics), Google Project Glass, Leap Motion, Nike FuelBand, Ouya (Boxer8) 

Design / ABSOLUT Unique, Cooled Conservatories (Wilkinson Eyre), Disney D-Tech Me, 

Olympic Cauldron (Heatherwick Studio), Tesla S 

Retail / Audi City, Magazine Você (Magazine Luiza), Topshop Unique, Neiman Marcus NM Service App 

Small But Perfectly Formed / Dollar Shave Club, Hiut Denim, Raspberry Pi Foundation, 

Sir Richard’s, Percolate, Who Gives a Crap 


60


61

Published by Contagious Communications 

Writers / Lucy Aitken, Sheelin Conlon, Katrina Dodd, Emily Hare, Patrick Jeffries, Alex 

Jenkins, Arwa Mahdawi, Georgia Malden, Chloe Markowicz, Nick Parish, Gina Rembe, 

Will Sansom, Dan Southern, Ed White 

Editors / Emily Hare, Paul Kemp-Robertson, Georgia Malden 

Research/Production / Sian Bateman, Laura Parsons 

Design / Dean Dorat, Smita Mistry 

Design concept / Art direction / Garvin Hirt, FLOK Design, www.flokdesign.com 

Contagious Communications is a leading global news and intelligence authority 

at the intersection of marketing and communications, consumer culture and technology. 

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