The Talking Shoe by Adidas and Google: Inanimate Objects Entering Social Media

Breakthrough technological innovation is always mildly unnerving. It challenges our habits and held assumptions, pushing us to adopt new behaviors. But occasionally technology outdoes itself: welcome The Talking Shoe.

This collaboration between Adidas, Google and a couple of smaller creative partners has just been presented at a tech and culture event SXSW in Austin, USA. The shoe is filled with all kinds of motion sensors that detect the user’s activity and communicate with him or her through 250 cheeky phrases as well as being integrated with social media like Google+.

So what is it exactly? Some suggest it is a motivation tool, encouraging wearers to exercise more. As far as customer benefits go, an inanimate voice with an attitude constantly nagging you is unlikely to help at the gym. Anyhow, the product is not currently destined for the market. The Nike+ FuelBand team can breath a sigh of relief.

More important seems to be The Shoe’s integration with social media. The makers have described it as ‘an experiment in how you can use connected objects to tell the stories on the web’ and ‘an experiment… of bringing advertising to multiple creative platforms, including everyday objects.’ A scary thought, but so was television and Facebook once upon a time.

By pushing the boundaries of technology’s reach this brilliantly wacky experiment helps us imagine an entirely new universe; one in which inanimate objects actively participate in our social lives. Is this where the future of technological innovation lies? Turning objects into real social agents with a personality to interact with us would be a sci-fi worthy breakthrough.  ‘[The Shoe] has your own social network feed so all of your friends can see… what your shoe says about you’ the makers proudly tell us.

As far as mass-market commercialization (and the broad cultural change that needs to precede it) goes, my gut feeling is that there is no inherent human need for socializing with pre-programmed machines. Unless there is a specific reason to communicate with a computer – like asking for directions while driving – infusing inanimate objects with a personality is not likely to add any value to consumers.

Telling stories online through inanimate objects could have great potential – but they will always be the wearer’s stories, not The Shoe’s.  

TopShop and Google+ Partnership for Autumn Winter 2013: Innovative Fashion or Fashionable Technology?

TopShop’s partnering with Google+ to deliver digital content for its Autumn Winter 2013 show has caused a high-pitched stir of excitement in the fashion circles. For the first time ever, we can experience the catwalks through the models’ eyes, pretend to be a fashion buyer and even communicate with the backstage design teams!

Whilst this is all excellent, a fashion brand using digital platforms to create innovative customer experiences is nothing revolutionary – the likes of Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Net-a-Porter have already laid that path. And the focus on Topshop is obstructing the significance of the other brand here – Google. 

This is not the first time it ventures into fashion, for example having paired with Diane von Furstenburg in 2012 to create models’ view images with Google Glass (apparently Sergey Brin himself took to the stage wearing the eye-camera!). A decade ago it would have been unthinkable for a serious tech brand to have an all but superficial sponsorship-led role in fashion, but the worlds of both tech and brands are changing. 

On the one hand tech firms have realized that although functionality is king in their category, building deeper emotional engagement with customers helps cement the brand’s dominant market position. The combination of superior functionality and truly outstanding emotive branding is what keeps Apple at the top of its game. Similarly, Google’s moving ‘The Web Is What You Make It’ campaign appeals to our soft and fluffy side rather than highlighting technological benefits.

Brands, on the other hand, are becoming more ‘functional.’ They are as emotional as ever at the core, but instead of the traditional one-way projection of their values through advertising, they now seek to engage with customers through creating tangible, shared experiences through content marketing. In the digital age, this requires digital know-how so tech firms are obvious partners.   

The web is [indeed] what you make it, and both TopShop and Google are using the tools available to them to each create something entirely new. Traditionally fashion has been branding’s more obvious playground, but tech is not far behind.