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It's a well-known fact that dogs can be conversation starters that help break the ice with people their owners meet. Taking the notion a step further, a new collar tag from Boston-based SNIF Labs lets pet owners forge new connections with fellow dog-walkers, both online and off. Available in a range of colours and patterns, the SNIF Tag is a small RFID device that attaches to a dog's collar and records his or her daily movements and social encounters. On the social side, each SNIF Tag emits a unique signal that is sensed by the SNIF Tags worn by other dogs. When Fido meets such tag-bearing playmates during a jaunt to the park, his collar stores that information and later uploads it automatically into the accompanying base station, which stays plugged into the owner's PC at home. The dog's owner can then log in to view the profiles of the owners of those other dogs and decide if they want to connect online as well. In addition to monitoring social interactions, the SNIF Tag also uses an accelerometer and motion-analysis software to record a pet's activity. Owners can monitor the dog's movements in real time while he's home but they're at work, for example; alternatively, when Fido is out with the walker, information on his activities will be automatically uploaded when he returns. Activity levels can be reviewed by the hour, day or month, and owners can compare them with those of the other SNIF Tag-wearing dogs in the neighbourhood. The SNIF Tag Starter Kit is priced at USD 299, which includes one year of web services; thereafter, premium features on the SNIF Tag website are USD 89 per year. Where is the line that separates the online and offline worlds? Answer: It's disappearing. More on that in trendwatching.com's OFF=ON briefing. Go fetch—and be inspired! ;-) (Related: Connecting online & off with RFID for the masses — Dating cards fuse physical & virtual connections — T-shirts that talk code.) Website: www.sniftag.com Spotted by: Computerworld.com via Roberta Steinberg
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Consumers have already shown that they're interested in designing their own dresses, T-shirts and duvets—to name just a few—so it's not surprising to see the trend spread from finished goods to the raw materials that underlie them. Last month we featured Finnish Bon Bon Kakku and its contest-based crowdsourcing approach to fabric design, and recently one of our spotters alerted us to another design-your-own fabric opportunity in the United States. North Carolina-based Spoonflower lets users design and print their own fabrics for just USD 18 per yard with no minimum order; custom swatches cost USD 5. After a closed beta launch in May, the Spoonflower community now boasts more than 10,000 crafters around the world who upload their own designs and use fabric to make quilts, clothes, pillows, dolls, blankets, handbags, framed textile art and more. When Spoonflower comes out of beta, it plans to allow fabric designers to sell their fabrics on the site, it says. In the meantime, users are selling their creations on Etsy, as well as participating in Spoonflower's Fabric-of-the-Week contest, the winners of which are chosen through community voting. Winning fabrics are offered for sale for exactly one week through Spoonflower's own Etsy shop, and their designers are rewarded with five yards of free fabric. It's not yet clear how Spoonflower's marketplace feature will work, but allowing users to earn cash for their creations is critical, as we noted in our story about Bon Bon Kakku. If there's anything Generation C(ontent) consumers love more than the ability to design it themselves, it's the ability to be compensated for their output. Long live Generation C(ash)! ;-) Website: www.spoonflower.com
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Earlier this year we wrote about idiomag, the personalized digital magazine about music, and soon travellers at London's Heathrow Airport will be able to create something similar—but in hardcover format—for use in-flight. Starting early next month, global banking giant HSBC is offering passengers at Heathrow's Terminal 1 a chance to select magazine articles on topics they're interested in and have them bound into a hardback form they can take on their flight, according to Marketing Week. Through a kiosk located beyond security at Terminal 1, travellers will be greeted with an HSBC-branded hardback magazine cover. They'll then browse the diverse selection of loose-leaf articles arranged on backlit shelving, UTalkMarketing.com reported. Available articles will be sourced from coverage around the globe focusing on four general topic areas: home and abroad, commerce and politics, health and sport, and media and culture. Consumers will also be able to choose from among five writers, including celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, tennis legend Björn Borg and Harrod’s trend forecaster on the future of shopping. Once they've made their selections, travelers will simply take their articles to HSBC's binding bar to be neatly bound inside the hard cover. The two-week pilot effort, which is part of a campaign to promote the HSBC Premier Card, was developed by Cunning with JC Decaux Airport, Kinetic's Aviator division and MindShare. By providing a bespoke, branded experience to Heathrow travellers from around the globe, the custom magazine project will underscore the upscale targeting of HSBC's Premier Card, as well as highlighting the company's global presence. If extended beyond the pilot phase, such an initiative could also be offered as a perk to Premier customers. Either way, it's just one more piece of evidence that the world is becoming thoroughly personalized—let consumers have it their way, or they'll have it somewhere else! ;-) (Related: Personalized travel books blend search and curation.) Website: www.hsbc.com Spotted by: Marketing Week via Peter Stevens
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We've written about billboards that whisper and billboards that even talk back, but not until recently had we heard of billboards that give out free love. Sure enough, though, the outdoor outfitters at Austrian Northland Professional recently kicked off a campaign through which billboards give away free merchandise. Beginning early this month, Northland has been affixing samples of its caps, gloves and scarves on roughly 50 billboards throughout the city of Graz. About 20 items are attached to each eye-catching billboard—for a total of about 1,000 in all—and the effort is repeated every other day. A video on the company's site shows consumers going to considerable lengths to get the items down. The EUR 35,000 campaign will run through the end of November, Northland says. Besides free love, of course, Northland's concept also gives the lucky passers-by who snag a free accessory the chance to try it out and tell everyone they know how it came to be theirs. Free love is always a winner all around, but when you add some tryvertising and status stories to the mix? That's a combination few consumers will be able to resist. ;-) Website: www.northland-pro.com
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Yes, we know you know the pop-up retail trend has been around for years now, but Teen Vogue magazine is bringing its own twist to the concept, with a space that doesn’t sell a thing. Instead, visitors will be able to try on items from the racks of clothes on display, receive advice from stylists and sample products from the perfume bar or make-up station. Free snacks and gift-wrapping will also be offered, along with access to charging stations for cell phones and iPods. Teen Vogue Holiday Haute Spot will offer its services to shoppers in New Jersey’s Short Hills Mall between 28 November and December 26, 2008. A welcome addition for the mall’s retailers, as stylists will lead visitors to stores that stock successfully sampled items. Products from the publication’s advertisers are also on display. Although the store may be temporary, the concept will reappear in 2009: two other Teen Vogue Haute Spots will open in March and April, on both the East Coast and West Coast, promoting prom wear. In August, another two will promote back-to-school gear. Moving beyond pop-up retail, Teen Vogue’s initiatives are part of the brand butler trend that our sister site trendwatching.com noted would be important in 2008. Rather than bombarding audiences with one-way advertising, Teen Vogue offers its readers a generous service that also benefits both in-publication advertisers and neighbouring stores. Freeing itself from the pressure to sell, the Haute Spots provide teens with a relaxed oasis from hectic shopping spaces whilst influencing opinion and boosting loyalty towards its own brand. If you’re in retail or publishing, this is one to study. Time to hit the mall ;-) Website: www.teenvogue.com/connect/blogs/soundoff/2008/10/super-cool-teen-vogue-haute-sp.html Spotted by: Maria Dahl Jørgensen
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Constructive feedback is necessary for both personal and professional growth, but is the annual review really enough? Launched earlier this month, Rypple is a web-based peer review tool that enables colleagues to give each other feedback on how they’re doing. Users register on the Canadian website, ask a question about their performance and select who to send the question to. Recipients quickly answer the question and fire it back. For offices that use it responsibly and accept criticisms made, Rypple provides a quick, on-demand method to help workers improve their performance. The system is also set up for use in classrooms, allowing lecturers to receive immediate and confidential feedback from students. For a broader look at how we’re moving ever closer to a fully informed marketplace and society, check out our sister-site trendwatching.com’s briefing on transparency tyranny and transparency triumph. (Related: Your very own focus group: personal image appraisals tell it like it is.) Website: www.rypple.com Spotted by: Stas Zlobinski
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There can be a variety of reasons consumers seek businesses that are open round the clock, whether it's to pick up medicine for a coughing child or to find someplace to eat in the middle of the night. Whatever the motivation, 2itch is a new Google Maps mashup that can help, offering a maps-based way to find establishments that are still open. Launched late last month, 2itch displays all locations open 24 hours a day in many metropolitan areas across the United States. Users simply double-click on the area of the map they're interested in, or enter an address or ZIP code. The ad-supported site includes a variety of hospitals, restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations and activities that are available round the clock, and users who come across others can add their own along with comments. 2itch's beta version, launched in April, began with some 2,000 locations focused on its home territory of Los Angeles along with Orange County, Seattle and New York, but the site has more than doubled since then, expanding to include Chicago and San Francisco as well as the ability to add international locations. A mobile version is also now available at m.2itch.com, and an iPhone-specific version is in the works, the company says. The majority of businesses may close up shop before midnight, but there are a significant proportion of night owls—whether by force or by choice—who are just getting going then. Cater to them, and you could say the late bird gets the worm.... ;-) (Related: 24/7 convenience stores, no vacancies.) Website: www.2itch.com
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Most of the free love we've written about so far has come in relatively small doses—free photocopies, free phone calls, free taxi rides, for example. A new venture from Swedish clothing brand Elvine, however, now offers select creative types nothing less than a free place to stay. Creators Inn is a fully equipped room with a balcony overlooking the city of Gothenburg, Sweden, and just a 10 minute walk from the city centre. Working with local independent organizers, Elvine's aim is to use the room to host artists and creatives visiting Gothenburg at no charge and with no strings attached. Foreign visitors are given priority, but anyone can apply by making a case for why they should be allowed to use the room. So far, artist, songwriter and blogger Momus and soul musician Jomo are among the guests who have been accommodated. Elvine explains: "With Creators Inn by Elvine we tried to add some creativity to the equation, labeling what we do as CSR - Creative Social Responsibility. By offering visiting creators free accommodation, we hope to remind people of a lovely little thing called hospitality. And in addition to making the visiting creators happy and Gothenburg a more interesting city because of their presence, we hope this simple idea can be exported and implemented around the globe." With the potential to generate a new, hip image and no small amount of goodwill among business partners and visitors, Elvine's example may well be one worth emulating for creative brands around the globe. Just furnish a room with a view, set out a doormat, and you're good to go! ;-) Website: www.creatorsinn.com
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Last year we wrote about Tokyo's Sample Lab, where Japanese consumers can sample and test new products. Roughly a year later, a similar concept has come to China with the launch of Shanghai-based Sampleplaza. Sampleplaza is a new showroom featuring brand-new products not yet available to the Chinese mainstream. Membership costs 100 RMB per year, along with a one-time processing fee of 20 RMB, and is open to anyone over 15. In exchange, consumers are invited to visit Sampleplaza as often as they want and test out a diverse range of products, from exercise equipment to pantyhose, cosmetics to high-tech, drinks, BBQ sauce, soup and snacks. In addition to trying out samples in the showroom, members are allowed to take home up to 5 items per visit as well. Either way, they need only fill out an online survey—a maximum of 10 questions per product—for each sample that they test. Products are listed online, so consumers can see what's available, and while the company's website is being fleshed out, news and announcements are posted on its offsite blog as well. As we've noted before, tryvertising is very popular with today's ad-immune consumers, many of whom will gladly pay to be among the first to test something new. Who will continue the spread of this concept to other parts of the world....? Website: www.sampleplaza.cn/eng
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About a year ago we covered BuyMyTronics.com, a site that buys broken and unused iPods, cell phones and game consoles. Now, expanding the concept to include even more consumer electronics comes Gazelle, which provides cash in exchange for a wide range of used gadgets. Gazelle offers what it calls "ReCommerce" on cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, laptops, GPS devices, gaming consoles, camcorders, satellite radios, portable hard drives, video games and movies. Users begin by specifying the particular item they want to sell, following the site's prompts for key bits of information; some 18,000 SKUs are listed. An online calculator then responds with an instant quote on how much Gazelle will pay for that product. For those with no market value, the company offers to recycle it responsibly. Gazelle provides free shipping for anything it buys, and in most cases, it even sends the customer a box to use. As soon as the gadget arrives at its offices, Gazelle inspects it to make sure its condition matches the customer's description. The company removes all personal data from those in working condition and readies them for sale through retail and wholesale outlets. Through a partnership with Recellular, Gazelle promises nothing will ever get sent to a landfill. Customers can be paid via PayPal, check or Amazon.com gift card, or they can donate to one of 30 charities listed on the site. In all, the whole process takes about a week. The United States alone generated almost 3 million tons of consumer electronics waste in 2006, according to a Municipal Solid Waste report from the EPA, but in the short time since its launch this past summer Gazelle has already kept nearly 5 tons of e-waste out of landfills so far, it says. Still plenty of room—and need—for like-minded entrepreneurs in other parts of the world! Website: www.gazelle.com Spotted by: Roberta Steinberg
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