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.
Dino Myers-Lamptey, Founder, www.wearetbs.com, discusses what is most exciting, and frustrating, him when it comes to tech innovation in marketing and advertising.
To find out more about getting involved in The NDA Innovations Sessions, please get in touch at newdigitalage@bluestripemedia.co.uk.
What are you most hoping to see from the pitches at the NDA Innovation Sessions event?
Well articulated and simplified tech solutions to deal with consistent market problems.
What are the biggest challenges for agencies and brands in finding and deploying the best technical innovations?
An abundance of choice, with little independent reviews of their performances. Often agencies and brands have to learn about whether the claimed benefits of a technology are worth the investment in it, by actually running a live campaign.
This is an inefficient and costly way to wade through the multiple options on offer.
What tech innovation have you been most excited about so far this year?
Most of the tech innovations that have caught my eye this year are evolutions rather completely new concepts, which often deserve the headlines, but take time to show their value.
Perhaps what I have found most impressive is the rapid progressions that have been made by the companies servicing our remoteness as an impact of Covid. This ranges from end user benefits for apps like Houseparty, to The Giving Rooms’ QR code donation backgrounds’ for Zoom calls, and donations stickers on TikTok.
In the adtech world there are a few things of note from companies which we’ve been working with or advising, from Smartframe, Knitting Media and Inflo.io which all have launched incredible tech solutions.
However the biggest prize which I think its still to be resolved this year is around improving targeting in a cookie-less world.
What hyped tech innovation have you been most disappointed in over the last year?
It’s quite a broad area though I would have to say voice recognition tech and that includes Alexa, Siri and Google voice. While all have shown moments of brilliance, I am often frustrated by their inability to do the basic things, or as in apples case, their often unwanted interruption.
While they can be so intelligent, they can also be so absent minded. I still can’t understand for instance why I still need to hunt down my TV remote every time I need to turn the TV on.
What impact has the pandemic had on innovation in our industry?
We’ve seen an acceleration of products and updates coming to market, that were built for remote working and communications. This, together with the mass adoption of the tools has normalised innovation that many were determined could never work.
Showing large and small organisations that the product and the productivity of their teams can be delivered without them being in close proximity is a major breakthrough for some, and great leap for working wellbeing. However it has also shown us what innovation sometimes misses, or cannot yet replace, which for me heightens the value of coming together for culture and collaborative team exercises.
While we have seen the positive and immediate impact of innovation, we must be aware of the potential damage the pandemic will have on innovation in the longer term, with many small businesses struggling to make ends meet, and venture investment slowing down, it could well be that some promising innovations are stunted by the huge financial impact that this crisis is having.
