Station to Station

 

As far as trains go, I’m rather “admire from afar”. I never did Interrailing in my youth. And while I’ve nodded off on a few train journeys, I’ve never travelled in a sleeper car. The only times I’ve slept properly on a train were under a table on the way up to Aberdeen from London on a night train. And in an absolutely charming little restaurant/hotel in Germany whose name evades me - but this was a few repurposed dining and sleeper cars from an old train - a delightful experience.

Other than that, my mind has a romanticised Wes Anderson-esque view of night trains, fuelled by Agatha Christie films and the gorgeous Auden poem “Night Rail”, above.

Normally when I hear about something new from a “Berlin-based startup” I assume it’ll be something techy and not relevant to someone making serious thoughts about retirement. 

But.

Maybe by 2027 I will indeed be retired and very keen to give Nox a go. 

What a splendid thought - overnight trains across Europe with 100% personal rooms - for the price of a cheapo airfare. The plan is to connect over 100 European cities by 2035. I’m already dreaming about Budapest, Vienna, Linz and now Györ (which I had to look up) - the connections already shown from Frankfurt.

Wishing Thibault Constant and his colleagues all the best with getting this on the road - I mean tracks. 

A noble yet undervalued craft

 

I’m pinching someone else’s article this week, because it deserves something more than getting lost in my sprawling bookmark system. It’s by Alex Vuocolo: The Disappearing Art of Maintenance and was spotted by Good Business in their weekly newsletter.

Amongst other things, this article for me highlighted the disconnect between all those trend reports and innovation newsletters and sustainability innovation alerts, and the life that most people lead. My own life is one lived in constant dread of updates, especially as far as my MacBook goes. I’m tottering along with my 2015 model, but fear that the next OS upgrade could wreak even more damage than the last, which rendered two printers obsolete in one fell swoop.

Maintenance, as Alex Vuocolo points about, is about making things last, not repairing what’s broken. It’s conspicuously absent from the “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra as it doesn’t really fit with the ideas of reduction or anything prefixed by “re-“ as it’s about steady state, not change. That alone doesn’t make the concept of maintenance sound progressive or innovative.

But why must the idea of “sustainability” inevitably be coupled to the idea of “change”?

I’ve mentioned eBikes before - and this article talks about how, for example, the electro vehicle boom, driven by the promise of cutting emissions has caused a surge in demand for metals such as nickel, cobalt and lithium. Using up a different set of the earth’s resources while attempting to conserve another. 

Also highlighted in the article is the abstract nature of the climate debate and emissions goals:

Emissions goals are not unlike GDP targets. Both are administered abstractions, somehow all-powerful and impotent at the same time. They reduce action to aggregates and strip human actors of agency.

Or:

The pragmatism of maintenance work is sorely needed in the climate debate, which is so often preoccupied with end-states that it has no earthly or humanly way of achieving.

Of course, in the real world that most of us live in there are people that service your car, your boiler, your bike - and keep the roads and the railways and the buses in good order. But perhaps it would help to bring this mindset into other areas of modern life, too.

In the end, this is one reason I cannot abide the term “the consumer” being applied to everything beyond that which is actually consumed - from smart phones to cars.

Now, pass me that spanner.

On your bike

 

I was asked yesterday if I’d be getting an eBike. 

The answer to that is no, certainly not in the immediate future. Why not? For the same reason that I sigh when I read all about the latest “sustainable innovations” praised in the various marketing and innovation newsletters I receive, be these fashion, electronics, cars or bikes. 

I have a perfectly good bike and don’t need a new one. Ditto T-shirts, trainers or cars. And I particularly resent “built-in obsolescence” which isn’t just a feature of mobile phones these days. 

The uncomfortable truth is that infinite economic growth on a finite planet just isn’t possible. A recent report by Unicef found that if everyone in the world consumed resources at the rate of OECD and EU countries, 3.3 earths would be needed to keep up with the consumption rate.

I do sometimes wonder what’s going to happen to all those eBikes once the novelty wears off - and to the perfectly good bikes languishing in dusty garages and cellars as a result of this boom.

“Within the constraints of the planet" is often added as an afterthought when marketers talk about growth, but perhaps it’s something that should be brought to the forefront more often. The planet is something we must all share. Share in the sense of apportioning something finite, not the more current use of sharing as a term for making public - and quite often, showing off.

Nothing new under the (shaded-off from the Earth) sun?

 

I do love all those lists of trends and innovations and predictions of stuff that’s really, eventually, going to happen this next year. A lot of these articles take the form of lists of 22-whatevers this year, and typical is this one from The Economist on emerging technology to watch in the next 12 months.

There’s a mix on here, of the here-we-go-again science fiction cliches (Flying Electric Taxis, Space Tourism), the ones that are already on my radar (if radar isn’t too primitive a technology to refer to) - the Metaverse, Hydrogen-powered Planes, Vertical Farming and Personalised Nutrition, for example.

And the ones where I think - yes - great idea - bring it on tomorrow! Container Ships with Sails, or Vaccines for HIV and Malaria, for example.

But with one of the 22, I sorted of shrugged my shoulders. I’m talking about Virtual Influencers - see Lil Miquela/Miquela Sousa above.

The article highlights how these virtual influencers won’t get embarassingly drunk at a party, or old and wrinkly, as if this was something new. But there were plenty of pre-teen/young teen virtual influencers back in the last century. And many of these are still influencing today - for example, the Scooby Doo gang selling sunglasses. In fact, Velma is probably responsible for the entire Geek Girl fashion industry single-handedly.

Whether officially attached to a brand, or generally influencing fashion and music, pre/teen characters have long been a tried and trusted standby to attract young audiences. Like today’s virtual influencers, they can’t grow up and commit some unspeakable crime, or be caught on camera associating with dubious and unsavoury sorts - it’s all nicely under control. And they can welcome new pals and chums into the gang to fit with the prevailing social climate, too.

It probably all started with these two:

By the late 80s, a “Kids’ Club/Gang” was almost a mandatory. At Saatchi UK, we worked on the launch of Burger King in the UK:

Maybe the most influencial virtual influencers in North America in the mid/late 20th century were these guys - and I think they are still going - they really nailed the multi-media thing, with comics, a TV show, a No. 1 international hit single, promotions with all manner of brands - for example, this carboard record you could cut off the back of a cereal box:

Pour a little sugar (or healthier option) on it, honey!

Once again, the technology changes but the idea (or need) not so much.

 

The Aviatrix, the Algorithm and the Roulette Wheel

Ever wondered what an algorithm would make of a photo of you? In the  Milan exhibition Training Humans, Trevor Paglen and Kate Crawford show an exhibit which looks at how machine learning classifies people, based on the ImageNet dataset. ImageNet was created in 2009 to "map out the entire world of objects."

There are 2833 sub-categories under "person", and some of these are described as "problematic, offensive or bizarre." If you are intrepid enough, you can upload your own photo here.

I had a shot with my author photo, and bizarrely enough, given the theme of the books, it came up with "aviatrix." Even more bizarrely, my husband's photo prompted the label "co-pilot."

In order to dispel my worry that it was all going to be aviation-themed, I uploaded my son's photo.

The one he used for his CV. And the label? "dissimulator, pretender, phoney."

Luckily, the CV (and the photo) got through and he has an apprenticeship. One assumes that the humans were still in control at his place of work (ironically, an aviation engineering company).

But it does all give you pause for thought on who - or what - is sifting through the CVs, and the basis for acceptance or rejection.

Would a roulette wheel perhaps be fairer?

More than skin-deep

I wrote a while ago about old dogs and new tricks and here it comes - a brand new and very impressive trick from a positively ancient old dog - or at least its great-grand puppies.

Beiersdorf's first new brand to be launched for over 30 years is Skin Stories, a skincare brand for tattooed skin, including a sun stick, UV moisture lotion and a special repair serum. The new brand recognises that tattoos are mainstream these days (nearly half of all German women aged 25 - 34 have a tattoo - or two).

The cleverness lies in the winning combination of experience/trust (skincare expertise) and innovation - a skincare brand not targetted to gender, age or skin-type, as has been done in the past, but to a segment of the market who have chosen to modify their body in this way.

And there's a brand purpose, too - better and safer tattoos - with the brand going beyond product to set up a think-tank for modern tattooing, for example.

Let's hope it comes up roses for Beiersdorf.

Old dogs and new tricks

Perhaps it was ever thus, but I've noticed a distinct divide developing in the world of brands, certainly as reported by the marketing press.

There are the legacy brands, the old school. At best traditional and comfortable, with a certain staying power, solid and dependable. At worst, introspective and out-of-touch, hopelessly irrelevant, weighed down by their analogue past.

Then there are the disruptors, the start-ups and upstarts. They're busting norms, moulds, conventions and the old order. Possessed by more superpowers than the Marvel universe, they're shaking up spaces and zapping categories into oblivion.

And, increasingly, there are agencies springing up to service (sorry, co-create with) these trailblazers - agencies who talk their language and are disruptors in their own game. There's TwentyFirstCenturyBrand , staffed by data-geeks and storytellers (amongst others), or Nimbly, an "agile, daring, bold" insight agency.

What's a brand of a certain age to do? You can't teach an old dog new tricks - or can you? In the same way that designers introduced diffusion lines in the 1990s, established brands are introducing offshoots where they can collaborate, innovate and generally play the start-up game unrestricted by the usual processes and structures. There's a post about Unilever's Foundry here, and other examples include Henkel X and Oetker Digital

Beiersdorf are also in on the act, with Oscar&Paul - Corporate Indie Brands and the relaunch of the deodorant 8x4, originally introduced in 1951.

The question is maybe not whether an old dog can learn new tricks in theory, but whether he's genuinely agile enough to show them off in practice, without doing himself a nasty injury.

On (and off) the road

In the light of the recent UK advice to parents about restricting children's screen time , I was interested to see a new idea from Volkswagen's Amsterdam-based agency, ACHTUNG!

When I was young, car journeys inevitably involved looking out of the window, either aimlessly, or possibly in conjunction with an I-Spy book or a game of something like Pub Cricket. But these days, children probably don't even know if the car has windows, so intent are they on peering down at their screens.

But using an idea rather like Pokemon Go, the new location-based app, "Road Tales" (Snelweg Sprookjes) combines real-life objects with the imagination of children's authors and the young listeners and viewers to create personalised adventures - for example, a tunnel may turn into a rocket.



An imaginative idea that's entertaining for the 4-11s, useful for their parents and will add to the perception of the VW brand as both family-friendly and innovative.

The constancy of change

Just before Christmas, I commented on a post by Paul Feldwick, of The Anatomy of Humbug fame.  He'd compared two quotes about young people and advertising, over four decades apart:

Audiences these days, especially younger millennials, are super adept at seeing through cheap efforts to sell to them. If brands want to engage they need to be authentic and subtle.
Andrew Mole writing in Campaign Sept 2016

The under-30 generation loathes sham and hypocrisy... ‘tell it like it is’ is the touchstone.... more wit, honesty, verve, self-deprecation and irreverence.
Lee Adler writing in Business Horizons, February 1970

Can you spot the difference?

As I was in the midst of the annual deluge of innovation and trend reports, almost all of which start with some commentary about the "pace of change," I asked Paul whether he knew of any quotes from way back then about the extraordinary pace of change. He pointed me in the direction of this:

Whang! Bang! Clangety-clang! Talk about the tempo of today - John Smith knows it well. Day after day it whirs continuously in his brain, his blood, his very soul.

You can read the rest of A.B. Carson's 1928 description of an ad-man here.

There's a certain amount of arrogance in thinking that we live in times of greater change than ever before. But even the ancient Greeks knew that the only constant in life is change. I should think John Smith and his colleagues back in 1928 believed that the the electric, jazz world of the 1920s was "peak change" or whatever expression they used. 

As I read yet again about autonomous this or that, gameifying whatever, cryptocurrencies, smart cities, extended reality, voice technology, facial recognition, artificial intelligence and all the rest, the real world outside continues to confound the shiny new world of the future where everything works on demand. 

Maybe it's a fall of snow that makes everything grind to a halt. Maybe it's artificial stupidity instead of artificial intelligence. Things don't work, things get broken, unpredictable stuff happens.

Annoying, yes, but charming too, in the way that perfection lacks soul.

OK, time to scurry off to catch that train.

New brands on the block

Interbrand are well-known for their Best Global Brands annual report, which is something of a marketeer's bible, chronicling the good and great of the branding world. Now there's something new from Interbrand, which takes a look at the new kids on the brand block, the movers and shakers, maybe the star global brand of the future.

Interbrand Breakthrough Brands is like one of those '30 under 30' or 'faces to watch' lists that you get in the marketing press. Rather than a ranking or rating, it's more of a hand-picked selection of emerging brand-led organisations, all of whom are 10 years old or under.

200 brands were nominated by a group of 'key influencers', chosen by Interbrand people, and their partners in this exercise from Facebook, NYSE and Ready Set Rocket. These were whittled down to a list of 60 featured in the report, using criteria such as Change, Growth and Buzz. All those represented could be described as 'the start-ups, upstarts, challengers, problem-solvers, innovators and category creators.'

So, to the 60. Goodness me, this made me feel old. There are brands featured that were founded in 2014. That was yesterday, wasn't it? Of the 60, I'd heard of a handful, maybe 6 or so.

But I was pleased to see there was one brand I've blogged about. And another that I use every day - DuckDuck Go.

It will be fascinating to see how these breakthrough brands fare. Because I know that being on one of those 'faces to watch' lists can kick-start your career to even greater things.

Or it can be the kiss of death.

'Time present and time past ...

... are both perhaps present in time future'
                               T.S.Eliot, Burnt Norton




I have noticed two examples of brands that have made news this week by combining past and present to (maybe) create the future.

I'll start with the one not absolutely everyone has heard of, which is Polaroid Swing. I've often wondered how the Polaroid brand lives on, while the Kodak brand seems to have died, or at least retired and disappeared from view. This is one reason: a nifty little app that combines the heritage of Polaroid (for the name inspiration, see the groovy ad above) with bang up-to-date technology. In this case, moving photos. These are kind of like gifs, put different. 60 frames are captured in 1 second and the picture comes to life when you tap it or get swinging your iPhone. The world of Harry Potter has nothing on this!

The people from Polaroid and their collaborators at Swing have high hopes - could this be the visual version of Twitter? The insight is that we perceive the world as a series of (very short) moments. I'm not 100% convinced, but let's see.

The other new launch needs no introduction - Pokemon Go . You can't avoid having heard about it unless you're living under a stone (although that, too, is unlikely as you're probably sharing your under-a-stone space with a funny little yellow creature.) As well as combining old (well, 90s) with new to appeal to at least a couple of generations, much has been made of the combination of real and virtual worlds. Here is one of the better articles about the success factors.

So there you have it - for a successful brand extension, maybe we have to think like a bride and combine the old, the new, the borrowed (preferably via collaboration) and the blue - or yellow.

The next big thing isn't going to leap out of an algorithm

The publishing industry is one that's dear to my heart and my alter ego as a children's author. Interestingly, publishing is one of the world's oldest industries, which proves a certain amount of resilience to the slings and arrows, but it's also one of the most panicky and paranoid sectors and one of the slowest to catch up with modern technology and marketing.

I recently read an article in the Journal of the Society of Authors by Michael Bhaskar of the digital publisher Canelo and author of The Content Machine. The article is entitled "Big Data is watching you", which of course feeds directly into the publisher panic and paranoia.

Bhaskar relates how publishers have looked at amazon's winning ways with data, such as the data-driven recommendations and have established 'consumer insight' teams:

"These executives, sometimes drafted in from Wall Street or big retailers, crunch numbers on a grand scale. They aim to better understand their audiences and sales patterns, and to ensure that publishing  is tightly targeted at specific demographics... their clout is growing by the day...More than ever sales and marketing departments will require editors to back up their acquisitions with hard data."

Maybe it's no wonder that the publishers are paranoid.

But there is a flaw in all this, and it's something that industries with more sophisticated marketing departments can tell you. It's true that we can potentially learn far more from data these days. But this data only informs on the past and perhaps the present, if it's real-time.

Data can't tell you anything, as I have written here before. And people can rarely tell you what they want or desire in the future. Bhaskar acknowledges this in his article: "looking at past bestsellers is no guide to what will come next; nothing about 'The Hunger Games' suggested it would give way to erotica in the bestseller lists."

The point is that publishers have something that amazon don't have. Amazon is a retailer, simple as that. What publishers have is a nose for literature, intuition and empathy for human beings, for what makes them tick. And they have a duty to innovate, to seek out the new, to be bold, to take chances and to have an impact on culture and society long-term.

Which is all a more satisfying calling than crunching spreadsheets.

   

Shopping, shopping everywhere

A few years back, the world of online and offline/bricks and mortar retailing had a definite vs between the two factions, presented as an epic duel, swords unleashed, between the old guard and the young upstarts.

But a mediator has stepped in and changed all that. And this mediator takes the form of SmartPhones and other mobile devices. The trend now is that it's not either/or, but both and better. Ads from online retailers that criticise the bricks and mortar world - and vice versa - look dated indeed.

A brand that characterises this meshing of the physical and digital retail worlds perfectly is Hointer which recently won the Most Contagious Start-Up Award. Hointer is a technology platform that enables bricks and mortar retailers to leap into the brave new world where physical and digital are meshed together. As founder Nadia Shouraboura says: "Now it's time to bring digital and physical together to make it spectacular."

To me it's a metaphor for progress and creativity in all fields: reconcile two seemingly opposing factions and create something brilliant. The Whoosh Fitting Room in the video above is certainly evidence of that!

An element of surprise

"A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless." - Charles de Gaulle

Who doesn't love surprises? From Christmas Crackers to Crackerjack boxes, our childhoods are packed with little surprises. There are whole brands, such as Kinder Überraschungsei that are built on the idea of surprise.

I think we are surprised less and less as we grow older, which is a shame. And many brands these days are so intent on the pursuit of consistency and transparency that they forget surprise. The media we look at suggests the possibility of surprise through its sheer quantity, but the reality is different. All those headlines from Buzzfeed, now mimicked by what used to be quality dailies which claim "You Will Be Amazed" are tempting, but I find myself increasingly unamazed. Algorithms aren't terribly good at surprising, either. And reading this fascinating article by Tara Hunt, you'll see how so many YouTube videos use identical tropes (to use the hip word of the moment) /are formulaic (to be truthful.) And here are my thoughts about surprise from a couple of years back.

Trendwatching have picked up on this in their latest Trend Report: "Accustomed to now long-entrenched control, transparency and endless choice, in 2015 millions of consumers will find light relief in pursuing just the opposite."

I'm not sure about "light relief". I think that surprise - delivered through novelty and innovation in product, communication, service, pricing and all the rest of the marketing mix is key to keeping customers and potential customers "excited and breathless." 

Paper Flaps Back

The expression "the paperless office" has been on my radar for the last twenty years or so, but when I look around my workplace, it seems that I'm not moving on trend. True, I'm a lot less wasteful with paper these days - possibly because I have to pay for it myself and I'm stingy like that - but I do still hoard the stuff, even if I do have multiple copies backed up electronically on my various devices.

Talking of devices, I've seen a couple of ads this week on the theme of paper flapping back at all this new-fangled technology. The first of these is from last year, from Le Trefle loo roll, featuring the long-suffering Emma and her tablet-mad hubby.

And the paper flaps (or maybe twacks) back again in the splendid new IKEA Catalogue spot from Singapore, "Experience the power of a BookBook." To give IKEA credit, their catalogue is now not just a paper thing - there are all sorts of codes and augmented bits and such if you yearn for more than a paper experience. But I love the way that the wheel (or the paper catalogue) has been reinvented in this spot in that charming tongue-in-cheek way that IKEA do so well.



What's due for a revival next? Tin signs? Town criers?

Whatever - better the paperless office than the paperless toilet.

Innovation Foundation

I've been lucky in my time as a freelancer to work with some of the biggest names in marketing - such as P&G - and also with a number of very creative small organisations and individuals, for whom the cost of an ad agency on their business is prohibitive.

As a general rule, a top marketer at a company like P&G and a creative entrepreneur will tend to move in different worlds, and play by different rules, but I was impressed to see a new development from Unilever that attempts to bring the two together, for mutual benefit.

In the spirit of co-creation and collaboration, Unilever have launched The Foundry - a platform whereby the marketing people for the big brands can get together with entrepreneurs and inventors to work on challenges to improve people's daily lives.

It's a kind of David meets Goliath - and they make friends. Your ingenuity, creativity and agility for our investment, mentorship and marketing muscle.

Under the heading of "Collaborate. Experiment. Pioneer," a number of projects and challenges based around Unilever brands or groups of brands, are put up for pitch to technology start-ups. These range from the Young Entrepreneurs' Award - for anyone under 30 with a new product, service or app that could make a big difference to enable sustainable living - to Smart Bathroom - enabling families to plan/predict/recommend, organise and enjoy their personal grooming products more effectively and efficiently - to Smart Wardrobe - backed by Persil/Omo to maximise value from the family's clothes while reducing environmental impact.

I'm sure this will result in more breakthrough innovations than yet another new air freshener fragrance.

Carry on Camping

When I started in the advertising business, the military metaphors held sway, whether we were talking strategy and targeting, or training, or even how we were going to build our dream battalion, sorry, team. People got sent on "Bootcamps" and who can forget the horror of paintball games dreamed up to help us work better together?

These days, things are very different. The new metaphor for brands and business seems to be heading in the direction of a festival, rather than a war. Here's a great example of what I mean: The Happy StartUp Summer Camp, which takes place from the 19th -21st Sept near East Grinstead, Sussex, UK. 3 days of learning, inspiration and play are promised, with not a paintball gun in sight. No military types here, just thinkers, doers and makers. The programme looks like a dictionary of current buzzwords - digital detox, camping or glamping, yoga, DJs and live music, craft ales, mindfulness, empathy, storytelling, happiness with awesomeness sprinkled liberally in between.

It's all set up by an outfit called The Happy StartUp School  who are on a mission to help people start businesses that have a purpose beyond profits, which seems a pretty good reason for being to me. I haven't read them yet, but they are generous enough to provide a couple of useful-looking downloads about all those "P" things - people, purpose, profits and piranhas (or maybe I got that wrong!)

I suppose the cynical amongst us could look at this and say that it doesn't pay the bills at the end of the day and that in twenty years we'll find the idea of grinning kidults having a midnight feast in an overgrown teddy bears' picnic as absurd as all the wannabe Rambos paintballing each other.

But, I don't know. I find it curiously appealling, especially the price, which is less than half of what you'd pay for an "average, boring business conference". And there are still a few places left.

Good Ideas that Do Good

I see plenty of ideas in my daily trawl through the internet - and in real life - and a fair few of these make my think, make me wonder, make me smile. But every now and then, I see an idea that does all of those but has an additional indescribable quality of just feeling good and right.

For example, there's the winner of the new D&AD White Pencil Award for work with a purpose beyond profit (a good idea in itself). This is idea from the agency Droga5 for their pharmaceutical client Help Remedies. The full name of the product is "Help I've cut myself & I want to save a life". (From the "I can't believe it's not butter" school of brand names!).

It's a super nifty idea to increase Marrow Donor Registration, which could ultimately save the life of someone with leukaemia. The idea is this: you make marrow registration part of an everyday act. And that "everyday act" is a minor household accident - you cut yourself shaving, or your nick your finger on a paper edge. You're already bleeding - all you need to do is take a couple of swabs, stick it in a pre-paid envelope and you're registered as a Marrow Donor.

There's a super little film about it here.

Brand Aid takes on a whole new meaning.

Wish you were here

When I walked into my Motel One room last week, I was reminded somehow of the Pink Floyd song in the title, especially the line "we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year".

Unfortunately the music to accompany the swimming and the giant aquarium wasn't Pink Floyd, but that ubiquitous "Chill-Out" music, on a loop like the film. Both got switched off after the second or third cycle.

I do think Motel One is one of the best new brands to come out of Germany recently. A true millennium baby, the company was established in 2000. The underlying idea, a low-price design hotel, is an excellent one. And I know that when I first saw those turquoise chairs a few years back, I was blown away.

And yet... that fish-bowl bothered me. Along with the chill-out music, the "Summer Feeling" place sets,  the flickering fire on the flatscreen, even the brown n' turquoise look - it's all beginning to feel of its time, the noughties.

Although the 'One Lounges' are more individualised with local themes incorporated into the look, Motel One is a very standardised experience, which has its good and bad points.

I just hope to see a little rebellion as the brand expands into its teens.

No pooh-poohing this idea!

I do love the Springwise newsletters. If you don't know them, they are a digest of the week's most innovative product ideas from around the world, a cornucopia of curiosities. Unfortunately these days, rather too many are pointless apps, but there are always a few gems shining through. This week's selection includes 'Smart PJs' - scannable pyjamas for children where the designs reveal bedtime stories when scanned. Then there's a PopUp Agency, six enterprising young creatives who pop up all over the place for 48 hour projects. And finally, the one we have all been waiting for - the 'T.Jacket' which is "a tablet or smartphone-controlled jacket that uses embedded air pockets to simulate hugs and calm children without human contact". Just what a busy working mum or dad needs to stop those important Powerpoint presentations being interrupted by desperate calls from the kindergarten.

I am sure it was via Springwise that I first heard of my favourite new product so far this year: who gives a crap aka the toilet paper that builds toilets. The brand was launched via crowd-funding last July and the concept, design and jaunty pack design combine a typical Aussie combination of humour, no crap and big-heartedness. With killer slogans like "Flush poverty down the loo" and a pledge that 50% of the profits will go to Water Aid to build toilets and improve sanitation, this is an idea that deserves to take over the world.

Definitely one for the blog-roll.