Ahead of our Dragon’s Den-style Innovation Sessions event, where innovative tech companies will have the chance to pitch their solutions to agencies and brands, we talk to the judges to discover their views on innovation in our industry.
We spoke to Lauren Ogúndèkó, Head of Response at PHD to discover what she was excited, and frustrated, about when it came to innovation in the digital industry.
What are you most hoping to see from the pitches at the NDA Innovation Sessions event?
Data is becoming more democratised and tech that can utilise advanced programming (AI) to support more efficiency will be exciting to see (we’re still not there yet but the future of how we mobilise (people and systems) is here and the pandemic has accelerated this.
Also, innovation that can integrate our physical and digital lives and bringing advertising and marketing together more holistically. Innovation that can offer predictive solutions to advertising.
What are the biggest challenges for agencies and brands in finding and deploying the best technical innovations?
Time to review, understanding of where it fits in and what challenge it can solve, cost, scalability, measuring effectiveness pre-investment – value vs operational driven or both etc.
Also, there’s the “how do I know I’m getting the best solution when I don’t have time to review everything” conundrum.
What tech innovation have you been most excited about so far this year?
This is hard one. I love the new 8k TV launch, I was also excited about the dual screen/flexible phones, portable dual screens for laptop users,
What hyped tech innovation have you been most disappointed in over the last year?
Although not launched last year, I’m disappointed in Oculus so far as it hasn’t cut through as much as it was hyped to.
VR should be more mainstream but there is still a nascent view and approach to how it can infiltrate (strong word but that’s what tech does these days) our lives.
Also Facebook’s Oculus Rift has a high price point and everything about it seems to technical for the average person, but the average person is the exact audience.
What impact has the pandemic had on innovation in our industry?
I think the impact will have been on funding (lots of cost cutting happening), events to showcase products (not everything is VC supported) as the physical act of getting away from the office (and not home) and attending an event is missed and needed in the tech industry.
The plus is the growth in digitisation; companies are speed rocketing into becoming digital-first so innovation that solves this quickly and in-expensive will win.
