Earlier this year, our research and development team MediaMonks Labs partnered with FLUX, our fashion and luxury team, to explore the virtualization of fashion. The report explored digital’s impact on fashion design, production and consumer experiences—one of those being the  opportunity to try on digital garments using AR.

 Now, the Labs team has completed a prototype that allows people to do just that. Based on full-body tracking, the prototype features an original digital garment designed by Brandi LaCertosa, a Creative at MediaMonks with a background in fashion design. But the immersive experience does more than let people virtually “wear” a garment; it also offers a glimpse into the ways that digital technology can help consumers engage with the meaning and inspiration behind a design through storytelling and interactivity.

Trying on a New Technology

 If you’ve ever played around with a face filter on Instagram or Snapchat, then you already have an inkling of how the try-on prototype works—the main difference is that the prototype tracks the whole body, rather than simply tracking the face. So just like how a face filter might let you try on cosmetics, full-body tracking lets you view an entire virtual outfit on your own body.

When the team first began experimenting with the prototype, only 2D tracking was available by Snapchat. Since then, the platform has released 3D body tracking, which recognizes the position and rotation of joints for a more convincing experience.

There are some limits to the technology. The camera’s view must frame the entire body, which is good to get an overall look at an outfit, but can make it tricky to capture the finer details (like buttons on a blouse) that require bringing the device in closer range to see.  The technology also doesn’t allow for sizing adjustments, meaning a single virtual garment won’t fit all body types. Grading (fashion-speak for making larger or smaller sizes) a virtual garment follows the same process as a physical one.

The team anticipates demand for 3D content will continue to grow in the fashion industry. Realizing this, they built their approach around the way fashion houses produce physical collections. “We used the industry standard tools for design, modeling and output to see how these tools work together, and what we need to learn for future projects using this production pipeline,” says Geert Eichhorn, Innovation Director.

Designing in a New Dimension

The process of designing an outfit and translating it into digital was a unique collaboration between cutting-edge technology and traditional fashion design. “I wanted this garment to be a heritage piece, something that I would design regardless of it being digital,” says LaCertosa, noting that a fashion brand wouldn’t take the digital aspect into consideration when designing—instead, executing digitally would be our challenge to solve. The team worked with a Marvelous Designer, which allowed the team to work with the same kind of digital patterns that brands are already using in their current design process.

The digital production process emulated the way that a garment comes together physically, with the Labs team translating LaCertosa’s designs into patterns that would join together in a 3D shape. “We weren’t physically together, so I couldn’t make patterns for them,” says LaCertosa. She provided the team with references—“We use very specific terminology in fashion,” she adds—and connected with them over calls to suggest any changes that needed to be made. “It’s the same process you’d have by physically meeting in a factory,” says LaCertosa. “We followed that same production flow, but virtually—and it was quite smooth.”

This process gave the team the chance to test the new value chain mapped out in their previous report—a fashion cycle transformed by new technologies. “It speaks to how we do things. We have so much expertise across our teams, and it’s about trusting each other and knowing what someone doesn’t have and needs,” says Eichhorn. “There’s an understanding that all these things feed into one another, from design to production to the end-consumer, so it’s natural for the Monks to work together in an integrated way.”

Translating Inspiration into Tactile Experiences

The technology prototyped by Labs is more than just a tool for trying on clothes digitally—it also opens up sophisticated forms of storytelling. The inspiration behind LaCertosa’s design hearkens back to the Greek island of Chios, her family’s homeland. Among the island’s most famous stories is that of the Ottoman invasion of Anavatos, a fortress-like village high up in the mountains. As the Ottomans stormed the village, the women made a drastic sacrifice to avoid falling into a life of slavery: they jumped from the cliffs to their deaths and were regarded as heroes by the locals.

Elements of this story come to life in the details of LaCertosa’s design. Its silhouette takes inspiration from traditional Greek garb worn in the War of Independence, while ruffles climb up the shoulder to evoke ascension (“Anavatos” translates to “ascendable” or “climbable”). Worry beads made from resin produced by the mastic tree, which is most prevalent on the island, become shank buttons adorning the garment.

While it’s not unique for a piece of clothing to tell a tale, such stories are seldom shared with consumers. “Designers love telling their stories and sharing how they pull inspiration,” says LaCertosa. “Now, you have more opportunities to let people get to know the garment and learn more. Even small details incorporated through sound and animation could have a great effect.”

On that note, Guajardo continues to experiment with the prototype by adding different visual effects that make the try-on experience more unique, immersive and emotionally engaging. “I’m fascinated that you can mix different techniques that we use with lenses,” he says. “I’m using particles and segmentation to test different atmospheric effects.”

So, while some may use full-body tracking and 3D technology to show how a garment looks on their body, others might wield virtualization to tell feature-rich, emotionally driven narratives. From production to the consumer experience, digital’s unique ability to convey the inspiration behind a design and immerse people within the world of the brand continues to grow—and the team is keen to see where that takes the industry next.

There’s more where that came from.

While online platforms have traditionally merely catalogued inventory and product descriptions, today’s technology enables consumers to get up close and engage with products—a useful feature in a time when physical touch has become discouraged.

This fast-changing development has challenged brands to think in terms of new digital formats and channels, identifying untapped opportunities to strike a connection with consumers. One exciting example of this is Google’s Swirl ad format, which transforms banner ads into spaces to engage directly with 3D product models.

Google recently released a case study detailing a Swirl campaign co-developed by MediaMonks for French fragrance brand Guerlain. The ads invite users to explore the brand’s perfume, turning a digital bottle to reveal floral ingredients that visually evoke its scent in an almost synesthetic fashion. While achieving the “wow” factor of an appealing interactive experience, the ad drove results, too: Google notes a three-time increase in engagement compared to other rich media formats, a 34% increase in exposure time and a 17-point increase in customer purchase intent. The ad’s success showcases how technical innovation and creative storytelling come together to drive unique engagement opportunities.

Content That Goes Beyond the Bounds of Possibility

Swirl ads function in two ways: first, there’s the initial banner view, whose animation is triggered by the user’s scrolling down a page. Within this mode, users can rotate the product and zoom in to explore its details more closely. If they like what they see, there’s a prompt to open the experience in a full-screen view, enabling greater detail and additional features.

Tommy Lacoste, who is a Senior Project Manager at MediaMonks and worked on Guerlain and other Swirl campaigns, noted that “The most compelling thing about the format is having a beautiful, 3D object with real time reflection and shadows,” mentioning the creative goal of achieving visual fidelity. Another unique aspect of the format compared to other interactive banners, he says, is that it doesn’t immediately redirect you somewhere else. Exploration and engagement are critical. “With the Swirl format, we can really dress up and contextualize the object,” says Lacoste.

Showcasing the Guerlain perfume’s ingredients digitally as a beautiful bouquet within the bottle is just one example of how brands can use 3D content to creatively build new contexts for learning about or enjoying a brand. This applies to other content like AR filters as well; for example, MediaMonks worked with Unilever to develop a Facebook Messenger-connected AR game that turns the daily habit of brushing one’s teeth into playtime, helping establish healthy habits by tapping into children’s imagination.

Striking Personalized Emotional Resonance

As shoppers increasingly turn to digital channels to research, discover and make purchases online, 3D content also offers an immersive opportunity to strike a personalized connection. While this need has ramped up after the rise of COVID-19’s spread, Swirl ads were already live well before then, demonstrating how the appetite for such content has already existed. The format serves as an effective vehicle for building emotional resonance, which is increasingly critical to differentiating the brand as consumers turn their attention toward experiences.

In the Forrester report “Navigate Four Waypoints To Build Brand Resonance,” Forrester VP and Principal Analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee notes the importance of driving emotional connections between a brand and its audience. “Brands do not just satisfy our material needs; they also speak to our subconscious,” writes Chatterjee. “The best ones connect to us emotionally in ways that secure them an unassailable position. It is much easier for competitors and entrants to innovate and replicate features and functionality than it is to displace an emotionally rooted bond.”

In search of the emotional resonance in content, MediaMonks Founder Wesley ter Haar laments that over the years, many brands and advertisers have privileged linear storytelling formats for too long, avoiding a key benefit of digital formats: interactivity. “The challenge is to deliver on the original intent of digital,” says MediaMonks founder Wesley ter Haar. “Interactive, tactile and personalized moments of magic that create conversation, conversion and commercial opportunities.”

Brands that seek new yet meaningful ways to connect with consumers digitally require a more innovative approach to the standard toolkits they’ve been working with. By rethinking how consumers can interact with physical products digitally, Swirl ads and other 3D content like AR filters encourage brands to adopt a channel-specific mindset that identifies opportunities to meet consumers in unique, but increasingly relevant, ways.

Brands Are Best Served with a 3D Strategy in Place

3D content replicates the physical experience of engaging with a product, but has the opportunity to go even further because it’s unbounded by physical constraint—aside from file sizes and loading times, anyway. But conceptually, 3D creative content offers brands a way to immerse users within the brand story at a low barrier of entry. In this respect, Lacoste recommends brands use 3D content purposefully: “In many instances, a video suffices. 3D content must be used with purpose, and made interactive for the full effect.”

Also look for opportunities to to maximize value and efficiency. “Let’s say I’ve made a 3D model of a perfume bottle to use in a banner,” says Lacoste. “We can reuse that in an AR lens or in a marketing video.” While most brands still consider 3D content as a “nice-to-have” rather than a “must-have,” it’s worth understanding the versatility of the assets.

In fact, in a webinar hosted by the In-House Agency Forum, ter Haar advised brands to “Try to make the 3D element part of your production workflow. One of the big challenges we see is that brands don’t have the assets.” By reusing pre-existing CAD designs, for example, much of the development work is already taken care of.

Whether watching linear video advertising in the form of product unboxings or engaging in new formats, like trying on makeup using AR filters, consumers are eager to replicate tactile, tangible shopping experiences in virtual environments. As brands face a reckoning moment to support this ever-increasing desire, they must do so strategically and efficiently. Simple 3D experiences like those delivered in Swirl ads offer an accessible way for brands to upgrade their storytelling and increase engagement that converts.

The rate of hyperadoption in digital retail has accelerated in recent months: consumers are buying online more than ever before, and retailers selling non-essentials online saw a 65% uptick in online revenue from March 14 to April 17, according to Forbes. As consumers adapt to the necessity and convenience of discovering, researching and purchasing online, retailers must also harness this moment to bridge the online and offline shopping experiences.

Econsultancy reports that “47% percent of respondents from large enterprises say that in the past several weeks, they have observed product or service innovations at their organizations as a result of the outbreak, while 49% have observed innovation in marketing messaging or branding that they might use post-outbreak.” One such innovation that marketers are exploring is augmented reality (AR), specifically for industries in which meeting in-person was previously thought to be critical in making a purchasing decision—take luxury retailers, commercial and residential real estate, car buying and more.

AR Offers an Intuitive Digital Shopping Experience

Many consumers are already familiar with AR technology thanks to the ubiquity of AR filters in camera apps like Instagram or Facebook Camera. In fact, Facebook also offers AR-based advertisements within the newsfeed, allowing customers to “try out” products virtually—for example, testing lipstick shades using the front-facing camera.

AR technology links the convenience of shopping from home with the ability to inspect, explore and assess products on a store shelf. This offers a comfortable middle ground for consumers who want to bring the retail experience closer to home, either out of personal preference or due to a need for contactless shopping solutions.

A new normal requires new ways to engage.

Retailers are also primed to become the next big media platforms for brands to tell their stories, according to insights from the Forrester report, “Retailers: You’re The Next Media Moguls.” “Shopping is fragmented and the shopping journey isn’t linear, but consumers are nonetheless likely to discover and research high- and low-consideration products in retail stores and on retail websites,” writes Forrester VP, Principal Analyst Sucharita Kodali. “As sources of information, retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart know they are well positioned to tell brand stories to these shoppers on their and other websites.”

Big-box retailers and leading ecommerce platforms can transform the shopping experience and support the businesses they represent by offering such highly personalized digital experiences. By baking AR into its app, for example, Amazon enables brands to engage with customers while they’re already in the mindset to shop. But perhaps more important to the role that retail must play for consumers moving forward, these experiences build a personalized connection and emotional resonance.

In his talk “Extending Beyond the Horizon,” delivered to the In-House Agency Forum, MediaMonks Founder Wesley ter Haar discussed the impact that engaging with an object—physically or digitally—has on consumers. “Interacting with product in physical space makes you feel like you own it. Building that into the digital experience delivers on that user expectation for personalization that’s often missing.”

Streamline the In-Store or Showroom Experience

While the immediate benefits of AR are clear to at-home shoppers, the technology can enhance and streamline the brick-and-mortar retail experience as well. Examples include wayfinding toward specific products via a mobile camera or offering AR directories that may make it easier to find specific stores and departments. AR product demonstrations like those mentioned above serve a purpose in-store, too, offering a high-tech alternative to display products or expert-led demos, enabling an overall contactless shopping experience.

In this respect, retailers should approach AR with a sense of purpose, ensuring the space embraces a “camera-ready” approach. “Is your packaging ready for cameras, is your retail space ready for cameras?” asks ter Haar. “In building an overall AR infrastructure, consider: What do I want people to unlock when they scan something?”

Supporting these technologies also establishes a long-term strategy for real estate businesses to activate spaces and build a sense of placemaking for their retail tenants. Similarly, 3D content offers an engaging way for these businesses to entice new tenants: for example, offering an AR overlay that virtually furnishes the space, adds data visualizations or lets users see the effect that time of day has on lighting. In response to social distancing, for example, venues are building digital twins that let online users truly inhabit spaces digitally. Such features would also prove useful to both retail and residential real estate.

Focus on Simplicity and Efficiency in Building AR Experiences

For brands that are experimenting with AR for the first time—either as one-off campaigns or as a sustained feature in an ecommerce platform—it’s important to keep things simple. The most complex and feature-rich AR experiences require users to download and install a brand app, which many users may be unwilling to do. “One aspect that’s very critical is how seamlessly you can enter an AR experience,” says Marie-Céline Merret Wirström, Executive Producer at MediaMonks. “Downloading an app is a huge barrier of entry.” Instead, retailers may consider web-based AR experiences that plug in directly with an existing ecommerce platform with just a simple tap.

Social AR experiences, like those you can find on Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook Messenger, offer a simple way for brands and retailers to experiment with AR. “AR is really powerful in the funnel,” says ter Haar. “Lenses are often thought of just as something that is entertaining but a throwaway experience, buy you can build really impactful functionalities by connecting AR with platforms like Facebook Messenger.”

Build snackable AR experiences that inspire.

Web-based AR is another simple platform to get started on, with an added benefit: users can jump seamlessly into the experience through their web browser. It’s also a very easy platform for brands to develop for. “If you are, say, a luxury brand and have a product that people will want to examine for size and detail, you should be using WebAR,” says ter Haar. “It’s very easy to implement because you just need the 3D format, the model of the product.”

Merret Wirström notes that even the most simplistic AR experiences can be effective for driving digital engagement. “Being able to see a product in 3D in high resolution is all you need, and from there you can expand to include specific features or variations in product,” she says. “That’s just a bare minimum approach, but it’s already so much more effective than looking at a flat image or reading product specifications.”

The Purina One: 28 Day Challenge serves as a good example of how a simple web-based AR experience can inform users while also building an emotional connection. Once activated, users simulate feeding a pet dog or cat that appears within the space they’re in. As the pet eats the Purina blend, the web app highlights signs to look for (and when) to determine improvements in health.

As a means to become more equipped to offer AR experiences, ter Haar suggests that brands elevate the role of 3D content in the marketing mix. “Try to make the AR or 3D element part of your production workflow,” he says. “One of the biggest challenges we run into with AR is that brands don’t have the assets available.”

Volvo’s Polestar 1 Experience, developed for the Geneva Motor Show in 2018, offers a high-end product demonstration by overlaying the Volvo Polestar with AR assets that showcase internal features. While this showroom experience is much more complex than what a retailer might offer at home, it provides an example of how AR can uniquely demystify product attributes through intuitive, customer-led exploration using CAD assets.

Augmented reality remains an efficient and effective way for retailers and real estate businesses to, well, augment the digital experience by building personalized impact. By integrating AR features natively into an ecommerce platform or even in a store, businesses can bridge the gap between online and offline shopping, providing a middle ground that accommodates the shifting needs of consumers.

The Mobile World Congress took to Los Angeles this week, gathering together the wireless industry: network operators, software companies, manufacturers and creative partners. The focus on this year’s event was intelligent connectivity, and how 5G is set to bridge together several innovations (like big data, AI, the internet of things and extended reality) to reinvent the way we interact with content and each other, both in our professional and daily lives.

In his keynote kicking off the event, GSMA Director General Mats Granryd identified several real-world impacts that 5G will offer. Mental health practitioners could provide at-home therapy to lonely patients via hologram, for example; colleagues could better collaborate with one another in real time from across the world, and students could “literally carry your classroom in your pocket” with experiences make a greater impact than a simple video recording of a lesson.

It’s the Year 5G Finally Gets Real

At a gathering of so many innovators and mobile operators, you get the sense that anticipation for “what’s next” is high. Technologists have waited years for 5G to grow out of its status as a buzzword and into an actual offering. With its rollout to select cities in the US, the promise of the ultra-fast connection is almost upon us, and a sense of excitement permeated the conference. In conversation with Meredith Atwell Baker (President and CEO, CTIA), Ken Meyers (President and CEO, US Cellular) contrasted this attitude with the jump from 3G to 4G. “We didn’t sit back and think, ‘Oh, look at the app-based economy right in front of us,’” he said.

But that’s what’s happening now. On the panel “New Marketing Strategies: How to Make Money with XR,” RYOT Head of Content Nigel Tierney mentioned how even with 5G on the horizon, there are still limitations to solve: “We’re at the crux of unlocking possibilities.” Silkie Meixner, Partner, Digital Business Strategy at IBM, likewise mentioned how the firm is working now to help clients prepare for a future that’s ripe with opportunity and is set to change the way they work. “There are already things we have to do with our clients to think 5 years out,” she said. “You have to take 5G as a given.”

Buying in on Big Bandwidth

So, what does the 5-year, 5G plan look like? The simplest way to envision a 5G-infused future is to consider the significant boost in bandwidth it will provide: it can reach speeds of up to 100x faster than 4G, which had previously made significant impact on services like streaming music and video years ago. And what 4G connectivity has done for video, 5G could do for emerging media, including cloud-based gaming (like Google’s upcoming Stadia gaming service) or streamable AR and VR.

In his keynote presentation, Viacom CEO Bob Bakish discussed how the multinational entertainment conglomerate is looking forward to a near-future of premium video content, enhanced with the power of 5G and integrated with related media and platforms. This would usher in an “era of advanced video experiences that will truly allow mobile to distinguish itself as an entertainment medium.” It would also encourage brands and content creators to consider the many contexts in which audiences will connect to their content: on a smartphone, in a driverless car or somewhere else.

Bakish mentioned how developing such content through new partnerships would help network operators differentiate themselves by leveraging their partners’ IP. We saw the strategy in action at this year’s Comic Con, where we helped AT&T launch a VR experience that let Batman fans fly through Gotham City. The experience’s presence at the conference instilled trust in AT&T’s ability to output the kind of content that audiences desire after its acquisition of Time Warner and DC Comics IP.

Extending Extended Reality Even Further

While the Batman experience was site-specific, 5G offers opportunity to enhance and scale up such experiences for mass audiences. One of the biggest challenges affecting AR and VR right now is that it’s not easily streamable; users must discover and download applications for fully-featured experiences, which is partly why the much more limited (yet accessible) camera filter has risen as the most popular and ubiquitous use of the technology.

But 5G can do away with those constraints. “More bandwidth means we can be more ambitious and artistic with the content we create,” says Olivier Koelemij, Managing Director of MediaMonks LA, who sat on the same panel. “A better, more immersive story means our strategies to amplify it will become more ambitious in lockstep.”

This means there’s opportunity for brands to relate with audiences through more sophisticated, shareable digital experiences. Tierney attributes failure to poor storytelling and lack of meaningfulness, citing a need for brands to integrate personalization and data into the creative process and delivery—basically, they need to be more purposeful in their ideation and delivery to provide resonant interactive experiences.

“We don’t suggest a technological approach because it’s the hot trend,” says Koelemij. “Our content and technology must be fit for format, purpose and consumer.” He suggests viewing any creative problem through a pragmatic lens. “You should ask questions like: is extended reality helping us deliver a stronger message here? How can we integrate other digital elements to do this?” The goal is to home in on the right approach for your business goals through data and KPIs, ultimately delivering an experience that resonates with consumers.

Meixner described how IBM employed such a strategy to develop a VR-enabled training experience. The B2B solution not only makes training faster and scalable by teaching trainees skills that they’d otherwise gain in a classroom—it also collects data through interactions like motion analysis, which could be used to optimize the tool or develop new ones. The strategy shows how innovations can be developed and optimized through practical, real-world data that empowers and educates.

It’s clear from this year’s conference that 5G isn’t just about connecting people to friends or family via a wireless handset. It’s about truly integrating all of the devices and touch points we interact with each day, enabling truly transformable and new interactions. As the technology begins to roll out, brands must be prepared to adopt it with a sense of purpose to offer audiences meaningful, impactful and differentiated experiences.

The decade is drawing quickly to a close, and it’s been a wild ride. From new technologies to new members of our family (we welcomed BizTech, IMA, Firewood Marketing and WhiteBalance this year), 2019 presented us with a lot of thrilling changes—and some exciting opportunities as we enter a new era. Looking back, we polled managing directors from our offices around the world for their favorite trends and technologies that have emerged in the past year—and what they’re looking forward to next.

Extended Reality Gets Real

Interest in mixed and extended reality (the combination of real and virtual objects or environments, like augmented or virtual reality, enabled by mobile or wearable devices) has been growing. At the same time, mixed reality has made strides in maturity over the past year, like Google’s efforts in making virtual objects feel truly anchored to the environment with occlusion, in which virtual objects are responsive to their surrounding environment—for example, disappearing behind real-world objects.

For Martin Verdult, Managing Director at MediaMonks London, extended reality is among the innovations he’s become most excited about going into 2020, and not just for the entertainment potential: “Virtual and augmented reality will become increasingly prevalent for training and simulation, as well as offering new ways to interact with customers.” For example, our Spacebuzz virtual reality experience gives children a unique look at the earth and environment they may typically take for granted, using the power of immersive tech to leave an indelible mark.

As the technology that powers extended reality matures, so will its potential use cases. But when a technology is still evolving significantly in short time, it can be difficult for brands to translate their ideas or goals into clear, value-added extended reality experiences. “We have introduced creative sprints for our core clients to get these ideas in a free flow,” says Verdult.

Among Verdult’s favorite examples of augmented reality projects MediaMonks has worked on this year is Unilever’s Little Brush Big Brush, which uses whimsical, virtual animal masks to teach children proper brushing habits and turn a chore into playtime. Similarly, extended reality can bring products to life in an engaging way—or if used in a customer’s research phase, it can help customers interact with a product with minimal (or no) dedicated retail shelf space.

Part of the Little Brush Big Brush’s charm is that it extends beyond simply AR, connecting to a web cartoon series and a Facebook Messenger chatbot to reward kids with stickers at key milestones. “Value comes from connecting an IP to a brand through a deeply engaging hyper reality experience,” says Olivier Koelemij, Managing Director at MediaMonks LA. “One that only a well-executed integrated production can offer, combining digital and physical in new and extraordinary ways.”

AI/Machine Learning Grows Up

One can’t reflect on past innovations and look to the future without mentioning artificial intelligence and machine learning. From programmatic delivery to enabling entirely new creative experiences—like matured extended reality powered by computer vision—to connecting cohesive experiences across the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence “will change our interaction with technology in ways we can’t imagine yet,” says Sander van der Vegte, Head of MediaMonks Labs, our research and development team that continually experiments with innovation.

The most creatively inspiring uses of AI are the ones that will help us understand the world and our fellow humans. In collaboration with Charité, for example, we programmed a 3D printer to exhibit common symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and its effect on motor skills. The result is a series of surreal art-objects that make real patients’ experiences tangible for the general population.

Social Content and Activations Build Impact

Ask Sicco Wegerif (Managing Director at MediaMonks Amsterdam) what struck him this year, and he’ll tell you it’s the elevation of social content in purchasing—for example, how Instagram made influencer posts shoppable early this year. Wegerif notes that about a quarter of consumers have made a purchase on social media, signaling new opportunities for brands to build connections with consumers.

“Looking at this from an integrated and smart production perspective, we can help brands create so many assets and storylines that tap into this trend, especially when combining this with data so we can be super personal and relevant.” When social media is prioritized early in the creative and planning process, it can enable more meaningful experiences.

For example, our “People are the Places” activation for Aeromexico used Facebook content to transform the way users discover destinations around the world. Instead of researching and booking a city, users get to learn about people around the world—then purchase a ticket to where they call home. The social content enriches the experience and builds emotion into the experience. “It’s in essence a very simple thought that can change the whole CX,” says Wegerif.

Social Activations and Digital Experiences Weave Together

Speaking of social media, it can become a powerful tool to build relevance and connection with experiential. Jason Prohaska, Managing Director at MediaMonks NY, says: “Experience and social work hand-in-hand as part of the digital plan for many brands, and are no longer below the priority line.” With live experiential—which elevates the role of the online audience to interact, take part in and build buzz around experiences—brands can achieve greater strategic impact in how they build connection with their consumers.

But doing so successfully requires a confluence of data, influencers, experiential storytelling and production. The future of this looks good to Prohaska. “We expect 2020 to deliver several use case scenarios at scale for brand identity that may set benchmarks for personalization, automation, customer journey optimization, efficacy, performance and engagement.”

Koelemij looks forward to stronger investment in digital and consumer understanding as brands begin to integrate experiences even further going into 2020. “With most good work, success and performance can now be better attributed to digital as we get more advanced in understanding what success looks like,” he says, “especially in how we can measure it across blended activations.”

And that’s exactly how we’d like to spend 2020: helping brands achieve their goals with data-backed, insights-driven creative across the customer decision journey. Through added capabilities thanks to companies like WhiteBalance, Firewood, BizTech and IMA joining the S4Capital family in 2019, we achieve this by greatly prioritizing and enhancing key elements of the marketing mix for daring brands—and as we reflect on the past year, we can’t wait to see what’s next.

A common challenge that in-house agencies (IHAs) have always faced is difficulty in training and hiring the talent they need to pull off excellent creative. Unfortunately, this strain doesn’t seem to be going away. According to a survey by the ANA, 44% of US IHAs cite attracting top-tier talent as a primary creative content concern. And it’s not just about merely acquiring talent: an even bigger challenge they face lies in keeping their talent energized.

It’s no surprise, then, that so many external partnerships for IHAs revolve around two key capabilities: executing ideas in new and interesting ways, or offering access to specialized skillsets. Both are key in today’s digital landscape, which is defined as an age of hyperadoption, in which users adopt and drop new behaviors at an unprecedented rate. In addition to all of the channels that are cropping up, you don’t even know which will stick around a few years down the line.

As brands gauge the next big channels they’ll use to connect with consumers, they must adopt new digital skillsets in lockstep. But given the talent concerns mentioned above, how can IHAs keep up with these shifting user behaviors? The answer lies in new breeds of partnership that give IHAs the skills and tools they need to fulfill the brand promise in ways that not only stand out and “wow” consumers, but make sense to them.

Stand Out by Innovating Strategically

In his talk at the IHAF Conference this week, which brings together and celebrates hundreds of in-house agency professionals, Forrester analyst Jay Pattisall discussed the importance of creative differentiation. Most digital experiences look and feel the same, opening an opportunity for brands to stand out through best-in-class creative. Fitting well within the conference’s theme of “Futureproof,” Pattisall set his focus on recent shifts in the creative landscape, and where IHAs fit within it.

IHAs have thrived thanks in part to their unrivalled brand knowledge; they understand the purpose, intricacies and nuances of their brand. As Darren Abbott, SVP, Creative at Hallmark said while noting the power of IHAs to their brands: “We’re not part of Hallmark, we make it Hallmark.”

Yet executing their vision in an environment that encompasses so many emerging channels can be tough. New partnership models that aim to augment in-house teams’ understanding of technology, or that push them to think in new ways, can aid in both forecasting future opportunities and identifying the best channels available today for bringing the brand experience to life.

If you’re intrigued by some of today’s emergent technology, consider putting it through what MediaMonks Founder and COO Wesley ter Haar calls the “trend lens.” Discussed in his skill session at the IHAF Conference, “Extending Beyond the Horizon,” ter Haar described the trend lens as a strategy through which you can gauge the maturity of emerging tech as it rises up—or drops off from—the hype curve. It’s how we help brands arrive at solutions that best fit their capabilities and needs.

Let Your Brand Story Drive Tech Investment

The assessment specifically measures how a technology or platform meets user behavior (what consumers are doing with it) and distribution (how widely it’s adopted). VR, for example, isn’t distributed among consumers as well as AR is; this makes the former more ideal for installations and trade shows, while the latter serves as a popular way for consumers to simultaneously connect with brands and communicate with friends on mobile.

The trend lens works because it asks brands to really consider how their audience naturally behaves on a given channel. But brands must ensure that the creative idea is aligned with a clear business goal. At MediaMonks, for example, we don’t strive to sell brands on whatever the hot, novel technology of the day is. Instead, we experiment to push technology to its limit ourselves, then pay those learnings forward to help brands approach emerging tech strategically and tell their stories the best way they can.

Again, an IHA’s strength stems from its passion and knowledge of the brand. External partnerships that challenge their approach to creative and assess new opportunities granted by emerging tech are essential for futureproofing and connecting with consumers as the digital landscape continues to evolve.

This week, Fast Company launched its annual Innovation Festival, featuring Fast Track sessions that take attendees behind the scenes and into the homes of some of the most innovative companies in New York City. Billed as “Fast Company’s unique take on the field trip,” Fast Track sessions engage brands and creatives through hands-on talks and experiences hosted by participating companies, including MediaMonks.

Our New York office opened the doors to the dojo, inviting brands into our home to discuss all things extended reality. In a panel session devoted to augmented reality and its application to music and entertainment, our Monks dove deep into the design and development process of Pharos AR—a mobile AR experience made in collaboration with Childish Gambino, Wieden+Kennedy, Unity and Google. Taking users on a cosmic journey set against an exclusive track from Childish Gambino, the app is notable for being the first multiplayer music video.

With a panel including Snider-Held (Creative Technologist, MediaMonks), Thomas Prevot (Senior Producer, MediaMonks) and Tony Parisi (Head of VR/AR Brand Solutions, Unity), the session served as a casual fireside chat. The conversation kicked off by establishing the state of VR and AR, often characterized by the conflicting feelings that VR is dead and that the clear use case for AR hasn’t yet been found. But both technologies are well established, each excelling in achieving different goals within different environments.

Showcasing our Batman experience as a strong example of the immersive powers of VR, Snider-Held noted that “These experiences are still very installation-based,” and that AR’s distribution through mobile offers the potential for greater reach with a simpler experience. In explaining the process of developing Pharos AR in particular, the group explored key considerations for challenges to consider when developing an extended reality experience.

AR Can Feel Real Without Being Photoreal

Constraint prompts creativity—an adage that applies just as well to AR as any other medium for art making. Because mobile AR experiences are designed for use across a variety of devices, they must be relatively lightweight to provide a smooth experience to the widest share of users. Failure to keep technical constraints at top of mind can instead result in a lagging, stuttering experience that breaks immersion.

While this is true for any digital experience, it’s especially true for AR, a medium which Parisi says aims to “intelligently interact with the real world.” This expectation to seamlessly integrate with the surrounding environment can make stuttering graphics stick out like a sore thumb. “You want to keep the frame rate above 30 frames per second,” says Snider-Held, “because the user will compare the motion on the screen with the action happening around them in reality.”

The trio took this challenge as an opportunity to discuss the highly stylized look achieved with Pharos AR. While a photorealistic graphics might be impractical for a mobile device to realistically render in real time, a stylized look presents the opportunity to differentiate your experience through a strategic choice in aesthetic; for Pharos AR, the team took visual inspiration from Childish Gambino’s laser-punctuated stage shows, ensuring the app’s look and feel naturally integrated with the rest of the artist’s visual brand.

“Stylistically, we were trying to remain within the constraints of mobile processing in a visually appealing way,” said Snider-Held. An example of this is the use of particle effects, in which sparkles of light coalesce into a ghostly image of Childish Gambino as he dances to the music, animated via motion capture. “This is the best example on why you don’t need to do photorealism,” Parisi said. “We were able to capture the essence of Donald, because it’s his dance.”

Carefully Plan the Narrative Environment

Extended reality experiences are interactive by nature, meaning they rely on a different approach than how you would plot out and plan more linear experiences. There’s a careful balancing act between giving users the reigns to explore on their own versus stringing them along a narrative thread. MediaMonks Founder and COO Wesley ter Haar notes that “Narrative UI is key for onboarding and guiding the user in an AR experience,” making it incredibly important that you plan out users’ interactions and use environmental cues to shape a narrative.

While Pharos AR begins and ends through open-ended user interaction, it still follows a clear narrative through the virtual performance of Childish Gambino’s single, “Alogrhythm.” In exploring the primary path through the experience, the team began planning it in storyboard form, much like you would make for a film. “This process not only serves as visual research, but also in briefing the animation team and envisioning how actions will play out in the user’s environment,” said Snider-Held.

That makes sense—but what sets storyboarding for AR or VR different than other forms of digital storytelling? Because users could play with the app in their homes, the team had to plan for other variables how large the virtual scene should be, and what actions would be possible for multiple users to make within a smaller environment—like the cramped living room of a New York apartment, to offer an example that the Fast Track attendees could relate to. The challenge demonstrates how important it is to map out the virtual scene for different scenarios and users.

An interesting insight uncovered in the panel was that the team didn’t just rely on visual methods of planning like maps and storyboards. Due to the nature of the background music building up as users explore the space around them, the team also developed a musical timeline that maps up how different interactions trigger the layering of the music. The step showcases how sensorial, environmental cues can shape the action within an immersive, extended reality experience.

Whether developing for VR or AR, extended reality experiences require developers to rethink the creative approach beyond the standard linear story. From considerations in setting, technical constraints and variations in number of users across platforms, extended reality development relies on a comprehensive understanding of the building blocks that make up a total user experience. Snider-Held capped off the session with an ambition on what MediaMonks aims to achieve with brands through such experiences: “We strive to further the use of the technology from impossible to probable, and experiment in how to further that, too.”

At this year’s I/O conference, Google unveiled several new features related to its upcoming Android release and devices. Among the most exciting of these features are those that aim to change the dominant interface through which users engage with their devices: typing on a keyboard. While the touch screen revolutionized media about a decade ago, it looks like the camera and microphone are ready to take the baton, at least when it comes to accessing on-the-go info.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s keynote event was brimming with new features and products that are set to change how we interact with devices and each other in everyday situations. We paid tribute to this spirit of progress by producing an animated countdown video that kicked off the keynote, taking viewers on a journey through advances in tech over the decades.

Many of Google’s most interesting announcements centered on voice and visual search in particular, making the case that these new features could provide its users with information much faster than if they had to type it out. While this has always been the idea with voice interfaces, this year’s I/O event delivers on the promise by showcasing instantaneous voice recognition with its Assistant and surfacing up actionable information through augmented reality. Here are the feature’s we’re most excited about—and where the value lies for users and brands alike.

Google Assistant Becomes More Human

Google announced several improvements to its Assistant, many of which center around on-device voice recognition. Previously, Google’s voice recognition model was 100GB, requiring queries to connect to the cloud before getting a response. Now, Google has managed to shrink that model down to an impressive half-gigabyte, small enough to fit on devices for rapid, offline voice recognition.

“Now that Google can do recognition on the device itself, the device can actively listen and respond without the need to go through the loop of saying ‘Hey Google’ followed by a command,” says Michiel Brinkers, Technical Director at MediaMonks. “You can simply keep talking to the Assistant with follow-up questions.” It also allows for contextual commands, such as saying “Stop” to stop media playback on the device, no “Ok Google” required.

Google’s newly unveiled Nest Hub Max device—which is a mix between the Home Hub and Nest camera—even adds physical gestures to the interface. Thanks to facial recognition, the Nest Hub Max can alert users when it notices someone in the home it doesn’t recognize, or greet them with personalized content when they’re in view. The latter solves a crucial problem faced by Internet of Things devices: when multiple users in a home share a single device, how do you target them individually with personalized content? We’re excited to see Google crack the case while alleviating privacy concerns with on-device facial recognition.

Speedy Voice Recognition Will Change Users’ Lives

The greatly improved speed achieved through offline Assistant interactions is a game-changer on mobile devices, where wait times or lack of connection can be a huge pain point. “If a voice assistant doesn’t instantly do what you want it to, or if it gets it wrong, then it becomes more effort to use that system than to accomplish the task through typing or tapping,” says Brinkers. “But what Google showed offers a huge improvement.”

While on-device voice recognition can make many of our lives easier, but for some it will be life-changing: thanks to immediate transcriptions, Android devices will be able to provide users with auto-generated subtitles for any video or audio (including live content), an obvious benefit to the hard-of-hearing. In addition, Google announced its Project Euphonia program, which will provide larger data sets to train the Assistant to better understand those with speech impairments. “These initiatives are where a company like Google shows their value to the greater good,” says Brinkers.

As a Technical Director, the faster, improved speech recognition turns the creative wheels in Brinkers’ mind. “If voice does become a dominant input method, maybe we can listen to tone of voice—do more than just listen to what’s being said, but how it’s said,” he muses. “Then we could identify their emotion and design experiences around that.”

Google Lens Brings Printed & Digital Content Together

Voice isn’t the only interface Google is gunning for this year: the company also revealed several new AR features. While most consumers’ experience with AR has been focused explicitly on entertainment, I/O demonstrated how much the technology has matured in the past year to provide users with actionable, contextual information they can use in their daily lives.

One example shown in Google’s keynote is the ability to scan a restaurant menu with a phone using Google Lens. Doing so provides users with a list of a restaurant’s most popular dishes, reviews and photos. We’ve long said that the camera is the new browser, and new Lens features offer a textbook example of what that future could truly look like. “If I could read any restaurant menu in a foreign country and see what the food looks like through my phone, that would be amazing,” says Brinkers. “We always ask ourselves what the utility use case is for AR. This is it.”

In addition to providing greater contextual information, Google showcased Lens’ ability to animate traditional, static media—one of the coolest features for those who always wished they could read an animated newspaper as seen in the Harry Potter universe. One example demoed at the event is a poster depicting the Eiffel Tower. When scanned with Google Lens, clouds in the sky begin to move, bringing the image to life.

The tech isn’t just about cool visual effects, though—it also has utility, particularly with how-to content. Scan a recipe in a magazine with Lens, and a video tutorial can overlay atop it to show how the dish is prepared. What really places Lens at the forefront of AR is that the scanned media doesn’t require abstract, distracting markers or QR codes to activate; the content itself is the key, enabling a more elegant way to augment printed media.

Get Up-Close & Personal with Google Search Results Using AR

Later this year, users will find 3D models in Google search results, allowing them to examine the object or thing they’re searching for from any angle. If that’s not already cool enough, Google is upping the ante by letting users place the object in front of them using AR. This functionality offers a simple, intuitive way for users to learn about real-world objects and preview products.

“If you searched a chair on Google, it would be neat to drop it down in your room and see how it looks,” says Brinkers. “It will be interesting to see how this competes with proprietary apps that already let you do something similar.” One benefit that searchable AR objects have over those native apps is that users can view them without having to download and install anything. Google is exploring brand partnerships for developing these models in search, signaling the potential value it can have for marketing.

What’s truly exciting about each of these developments is their potential to come together in one unified experience. Scan a sign in a foreign language with Lens, for example, and Google can verbally read it back to you in your own language through advanced text-to-speech. Marry visual and voice features with an augmented reality layer, and the way we interact with everyday devices—if not the environments around us—may radically alter in the next couple of years. “What’s interesting with this event is that you see a lot of synergy between AR and machine learning,” says Brinkers. “Google is combining all these tools that they’ve worked on separately, and we see it coming together in a way that no one anticipated.” Ok Google, what’ll it be next?

A hallmark of the high-street shopping experience is to gaze at the various retail window displays while shuffling about. These intricate dioramas capture the attention of passersby and invite them inside through their creativity and intrigue—but these displays have long lacked a crucial element of engagement: interactivity.

A Forrester report highlighting the need for reaching consumers through digital experiences discusses the need for brands to center their marketing strategy on brand experience: “Digital is much more than marketing technology and channels; it is a way to harness technology’s enormous and unbridled capacity to reach out, connect, personalize, and engage.” The report goes on to mention how engagement through emerging digital channels in particular increases messaging salience, making it key for brands to continually bolster their understanding of emerging tech and its many applications.

To explore how brands could engage with audiences this way through one emerging channel—AR—the MediaMonks Labs team collaborated with one of the major players in the medium, Google. Together, they came up with an experimental app that transforms ground-level windows into portals to virtual worlds. Here’s how it works: take a look at a storefront window and you’ll find imaginative posters portraying friendly bees. Scan the marker with your phone’s camera, and the bee-bedecked windows transform into a splendid virtual world found inside a cartoonish beehive, the scene chosen for the tech’s prototype.

Inside the hive, busy bees work tirelessly to support their society (but not without having some fun). The idea is that a place of business could use this virtual display to invite passersby to peek “inside” their windows and get a sense of what’s going on there—in this case, workers doing their due diligence—without sacrificing privacy. Of course, the small virtual world offers numerous opportunities for digital brand storytelling as well.

What sets the app apart from your typical AR portal is that it’s designed for a specific window layout at a specific building, which allows for a more convincing virtual scene. For example, the precise measurements already programmed into the app allows the scene to continue to render even as users turn away from the AR marker that activates the experience. This means some bees can fly outside of the virtual space and into the surrounding world. Small details like this add to the scene’s realism and lets the digital experience spill out into the real world. “With this technology, you can tell a story on your façade,” says Geert Eichhorn, Innovation Director at MediaMonks. “You can take anything you want to showcase from your business at that moment.”

Showcasing Brand Values

In addition to letting viewers “peek in” to a place of business while maintaining privacy, the tech can also help white collar businesses maintain a friendly, active presence within its surrounding community through inviting digital experiences. With a quirky art style and delightful interactions, for example, the virtual beehive shows that the hosting office space isn’t your typical, boring place to work—and is committed to helping society as a whole, just like the friendly bees support their own. For retail businesses, similar AR experiences transform traditional window displays into memorable, interactive experiences—an objective that’s become increasingly popular for retailers in particular.

AR is a versatile technology, which means the virtual diorama doesn’t have to stick to a place of business, either. “Another aspect of this sort of experience is its portability,” says Roan Laenen, Jr. Creative at MediaMonks. “You can take the posters to other places, like a school. This digital beehive could easily be reframed as an educational tool on how bee colonies function or to raise awareness of dwindling bee populations.” As users interact with the hive, they’re treated to a selection of fun facts about the bees, delivered in an amusing environment.

While the context of interaction is different at a storefront versus a classroom, brands can consider how their AR campaign translates or integrates with larger social initiatives. For brands seeking ways to offer values-based marketing, AR provides an excellent opportunity to showcase those values in a fun, digestible way.

Engage Through Explorable Interactions

“Other storytelling mediums are linear, but this experience is personalized and reactive to the user’s exploration of the space,” says Eichhorn. Just like in a human city, life inside the beehive is broken down into various role-based areas: the nursery where bee larvae are fed and cared for, the queen’s palace, the construction site where builder bees press new honeycombs and more.

As users fix their gaze on these areas, a guide bee flies toward it and asks if they’d like to engage or learn more. “The guide bee isn’t just telling you what to do,” says Eichhorn. “His suggestions are built into the way the user looks around and explores, making him more like a real person who guides you through a space.” The guide balances the tightrope between leading users’ attention while also providing the freedom to engage however they please.

As a medium, AR naturally opens up opportunities for play and exploration. This results in a sense of intuitiveness that can’t be beat by most other forms of digital media. “This type of experience feels fun and understandable for young kids, yet it’s engaging for older people as well,” says Laenen, “even if they don’t understand the tech behind it.”

Good AR is a Multi-Discipline Effort

The guide bee buzzing to and fro isn’t the only way the experience captures user attention. “It’s a coming together of various talents and disciplines,” says Laenen. “The gamified element that attracts users to interact really flourishes with the animations and sound effects that also make up the experience.”

While much of the installation’s focus may be on the virtual world rendered via AR, one can’t forget the importance of the printed posters that activate the experience. They are, after all, what make the first impression to passersby and invite them to act. Printed collateral must not only be engaging, but consistent with the virtual experience. “The poster art easily translates to the 3D models,” says Laenen. “Close collaboration between the 3D modelers and the illustration team allowed us to realize a whole intricate world.”

By leveraging the latest digital technology, brands can reach their audiences in surprising and new ways, sometimes where consumers least expect it. By rendering imaginative virtual worlds as seen with MediaMonks Labs’ and Google’s digital beehive, brands can educate their audiences on brand values or key social issues in a way that sticks—and that sounds like a recipe sweeter than honey.

With an ever-quickening rate of technological change and new platforms emerging just as fast, it can be tough for businesses to adapt. Rather than reinvent the wheel, legacy businesses should strive to be themselves.

When it comes to digital transformation, legacy businesses are in a uniquely tight spot: they must consider how to provide new, innovative experiences while retaining the character, image and customer relationship that have worked so well thus far. In some cases, rigid brand standards and internal reluctance to change can squander customers’ relationship with even beloved brands. So how does one invest in digital transformation without losing what made them unique and successful? 

Take stock of customers’ needs and how you can meet them.

The first step in adopting a digital strategy is to keep a customer-centric focus. How can digital platforms add value for them on top of your existing IP and products? Which of your customers’ needs are unmet given the channels that are available to you today? In addition to focusing on customer habits and needs, you should keep an eye on competition for inspiration, benchmarks and to see where possibilities lie. Are there any ways you can provide an even better experience than them?

When envisioning the experience that you want to give customers, avoid a common pitfall that befalls some brands: the dubious assumption that digital transformation solely involves a flashy site or app. In fact, digital transformation is a multifaceted process that will require you to restructure the way you do business. So rather than just invest in a new website or app experience, you’ll need a much more integrated approach to how your core message is amplified across several touchpoints, media and other messaging. This also means restructuring your team a bit. One example of changes you might implement includes marrying your marketing and IT teams to ensure a smoother user experience on the web.

Use your stature to your advantage—but don’t be afraid of change.

Old habits die hard, but legacy businesses have one advantage over newer ones: decades of cultural relevance and consumer trust that they can draw upon when asserting themselves in a digital space. Take, for example, one of the most iconic toy brands of all time: LEGO. When children’s attention shifted from physical toys to smartphones and iPads, LEGO wasn’t going to go down without a fight. The big, bad wolf of digital media failed to huff, puff and blow the LEGO-brick house down. Instead, the Danish toymaker chose to follow the wind and invest heavily in apps, videogames and film. The digital transformation effort has proved so successful that it’s today regarded as the “Apple of toys.”

Niels B. Christiansen, LEGO CEO, mentioned in the LEGO Play Well Report 2018 that “today’s children are seamlessly merging what’s real and what’s virtual, reinventing play in ways people of my own generation could never have envisioned.” This inspired the brand to similarly blur the lines between physical and digital experiences. “We at LEGO are embracing that fluidity in play,” added LEGO CMO Julia Goldin, “and we want to have a bigger role in a child’s development” both online and off.

LEGO’s sophistication in digital platforms culminated in Nexo Knights, a toy franchise designed to hold children’s attention across an entire ecosystem of experiences and media including a TV series, a mobile app, retail VR experiences and a web game. The robust campaign introduced children to the world of the toy series—but even with the bells and whistles of a VR game and mobile app, the focus was still on the boxes of brightly colored, plastic bricks that kids could dive their fists into.

Some things simply aren’t replicated digitally, according to Sander van der Vegte, Head of Labs at MediaMonks Labs. “From the feeling of the bricks to the sound of them clicking together,” there are many physical elements to the beloved brick toy that would make it impossible to replace the physical aspect of play. The big question to consider with digital transformation is how digital can augment the experience or thing that people already love about your brand.

See how we pieced together the Nexo Knights launch brick-by-brick.

Don’t cling to legacy business models, but enhance them in a smart way.

Clinging to a legacy business model can be suicide amidst changing consumer habits. Companies that are early in the digital transformation process can prioritize tools, platforms and features that fit within their existing business model rather than try to reinvent the wheel or deny the changing tide of customer needs.

One aspect of the Nexo Knights campaign that shouldn’t be overlooked is that it invites customers to visit and explore LEGO retail stores in a couple of different ways—despite the fact that most toy sales are happening online rather than off. What sounds like a bad idea has proven fruitful for the brand. A keystone of the campaign is the Nexo Knights VR experience, which lets customers literally step into the IP’s world as soon as they walk through the doors of a LEGO store. After they became acquainted with the product, children were able to find power ups at stores that they could scan into the Nexo Knights app, enhancing their digital experience with in-store visits. With both assets, the brand leveraged digital tech to enhance brick-and-mortar retail and to encourage kids to see the products in-person. Who said retail was dead?

Digital transformation can certainly be intimidating—it forces you to take a long, hard look at the way you form relationships with customers and can even cannibalize your product. But adopting a digital strategy doesn’t have to result in an identity crisis. Sometimes the best strategy is to be yourself.