Planet Art Revisited - GoSee presented you the art platform of Razorfish and UBS in December, 2014. UBS Planet Art analyzes the content of numerous sources and indexes thousands of articles in order to present the most relevant information on contemporary art. We now ask Cannes Lions 2015 Mobile jury member Preethi Mariappan, ECD at Razorfish in Berlin, about the status quo, the perspective of her favorite app, about the syndrome 'women in advertising', and added value in the digital world.
Digital is your thing. But what do you mean by that? I’ve been working in the digital industry for over 17 years now. I guess living and working through the bubbles, booms and busts has given me a sense of context; I got to work on what digital meant at different points in time. Today, I really love how digital has brought together storytelling, products and service in unique and exciting ways for brands and consumers. This is what keeps me excited about my work every day. In this sense, you’re 100% right, digital is my thing.
Do you work for the generation of tomorrow? Consumers are already often overwhelmed by today's technology? Well, I think we work for today’s generation really; brands need to engage and businesses need to perform today, but part of my job is to also pave the way for a sustainable future. I think feeling overwhelmed by technology is a big problem for people in general, this is generation agnostic. Every time you get to grips with one platform, there’re at least 10 more around the corner.
It’s an even bigger problem for brands trying to engage in an overpopulated and dynamic industry. This is why we see the increasing need for more utilities and services that help deliver personalization and relevance. When you work in technology, you learn to accept change as given. It’s how you manage change for brands which determines whether consumers will end up feeling overwhelmed.
Your app for UBS - is there a conclusion? Did you have an aim and a benchmark you had to hit for the client? And if yes - what? Press, user, awards? The Planet Art app from UBS really came from the brand’s own DNA, its own four decade patronage of contemporary art. The bank has always held a key role in facilitating art education and knowledge for their customers, collectors and for a wider audience of art enthusiasts.
But with the explosion of digital media, we have thousands of websites churning out news, opinions and editorials daily, it’s become quite hard to separate the signal from the noise. There was a real need to find a way to simplify access to a very complex landscape, and create a tool to help art lovers find and learn about art easily.
What’s different and new about the app is that it brings data nerds to the art world for the very first time to do this. By using machine learning to look at data trends behind art content, the app is equipped with the intelligence to qualify articles worth reading, and find real-time trends that matter in regard to artists and cities etc. By further offering personalization on top, the app also constantly learns your own tastes and preferences. In the end, what you get is a super smart app that not only serves up the best art intelligence, but does so tailored to suit your needs.
This is one of those pieces of work that’s a true win-win situation. The customer gains real value in how the app harnesses technology, and the brand reinvents its role as an art patron for the digital age. Our benchmark really was to create the first intelligent art app that could not only fulfill a current need, but also influence how people learn about art, and engage with the art world from now on.
UBS app is designed as before only for Apple, right? Yes, this year we are iOS focused. We are looking at expanding to other platforms later.
Is it currently being further developed by you? Yes, we are continuing to expand and grow this service with new features. For instance, we added trending information for art institutions recently, beyond cities and artists. While it’s exciting to see how New York compares to London as an art destination or find out if the artist you like is trending, it’s also eye opening to see what the art greats like the MOMA or Guggenheim are talking about.
Personalization is always on for the app, so not only can you set preferences in your tags section, you can add tags associated with any article you’re reading. We have a really efficient tag-based smart search now, where users looking for an artist, city or topic can simply save the tags right off their search results to personalize their content streams.
The more you use the app, the more the app learns about you in an organic non-interruptive way. We expect to roll out more features in iterative phases over the year. A lot of our new features for the app are really being driven by the type of usage we’re seeing and where the data points us. It’s a big switch for us to use data now to think creatively. Until now, Planet Art has analyzed over 50,000 articles with over 35,000 interest tags across 5000 artists. Our algorithm has also identified up to 7000 interest tags connected to art institutions across 20,000 locations worldwide.
Essentially, we are able to deliver qualified content and trends on scale. This is just in the last 3 months. Clearly, we see tremendous potential.
Apps – are the most apps stillbirths from the beginning? Yes, common sense dictates that a lot of them are bound to be. It’s a highly competitive market. There are a billion plus apps at the Apple store alone. I think apps either need to deliver a great value or service to survive and make it to the top, or deliver first class entertainment. I think it’s especially annoying to come across ‘marketing’ apps created for one-shot campaigns. These are probably the worst kind.
Mobile Lion and mobile first – the phone is on the way to becoming the new supreme discipline in Cannes? Without a doubt. Most of us can barely function without our mobile phones. We don’t need the numbers to tell us this is the case. We listen to music on our phones, socialize, work, book tickets, buy stuff, and pretty much document our entire lives. I hope to see truly transformational work at Cannes this year in the mobile sector.
Women in advertising has been an issue in Cannes for years. Here is our article 'Mad Women - A HERstory of Advertising' from 2013. What is your opinion? I haven’t read the book, so it’s a great discovery for me; it is a definite must-buy on my book list! I think every step we take forward for women in advertising as individuals, peers, and organizations is going to make the industry richer for it.
We’re seeing more vocalization on this issue for sure, from conferences to festivals. I just read that 31.5% of the Cannes jury this year is comprised of women. What would be good, is to see this turn into real change within agencies and client organizations in the hard to change areas like corporate culture, processes and relationships. I think the biggest sign of real change, is when we no longer have to answer this question about ‘women in advertising’.
You are the founder of the "Adwomen Middle East", a community for women in marketing and advertising in the Middle East. How and what do you communicate? Twitter? Pinterest? Facebook? LinkedIn? Instagram? What is the idea behind it? I used to run Adwomen Middle East with a like-minded group of women from the industry, we communicated largely via a Facebook group, email list and a blog. For over 3 years, we ran a voluntary organization that invited women in senior positions to monthly ‘Trend Talks’ where they could share their work expertise and knowledge with a younger audience. We also featured creative female talent on the blog and launched a conference called ‘Behind the Brand’ which aimed to foster and strengthen relationships between female startup and business entrepreneurs and women in marketing.
It really began with a simple Facebook post I made over a weekend about the topic. Incredibly I had over hundreds of people comment and talk about it. Around 10 women asked to meet to do something about it. And we did, for coffee, and simply started volunteering and connecting our contacts to make this happen. I was really amazed at how quickly we were able to mobilize, how amazingly generous people were with their time and effort.
Eventually, after 3 years we decided to stop. I thought it was time to rethink the model and find a way to do this within the agency framework. Voluntary organizations are great for sharing and support, they definitely have their place. But I think long-term meaningful impact can only come from inside a work context.
What apps do you use? Would you like to briefly explain / descibe your top 5 for our readers?
Flipboard for inspiration. This is usually the first or the last thing I read. I love the breadth and depth of topics and content, following people creating their own zines and really discovering something new every day.
Yummly for becoming the greatest home cook. I’ve spent large parts of weekends using their great search tool to dig up and try out some crazy sounding but great tasting recipes. This is by far the most comprehensive and fun-to-use cooking app out there.
Spotify for music. My playlist lives here. Enough said. And if you’re not using Spotify to listen to music, my question to you is, how else are you listening to music?!
Whatsapp for social. For all the obvious reasons, simplicity, immediacy and privacy. I like that this is still social without becoming media, at least not yet.
Google maps for life. I think I use it for everything including finding my way to the coffee machine at work. I’m directionally challenged. I recently managed to find a great hotel booking while looking for directions on Google Maps for another hotel. Jackpot!
My Taxi for goodbye taxi queues. Taxi queues used to drive me crazy. My taxi’s simplicity and superb service makes it number 1 on my utility list. I had a taxi driver recently ask me to rate him and I thought that was astounding. How an app could so completely change the nature of commuting and drive a new service philosophy.
Whoever wants to find out in the real world which apps Preethi prefers to use, will surely meet her on the Croisette in Cannes during the jury breaks at Cannes Lions, 2015... joining her in the MOBILE JURY in 2015 are: Brazil -Joanna Monteiro, VP Creative Director, FCB, President; Australia - Russ Tucker, National Digital Creative Director, Digital Arts Network, Whybin TBWA; Canada - Steve Savic, Executive Creative Director, Critical Mass; China - Delia Liu, Chief Creative Strategy Officer, WizAd; Denmark - Martin Chapman, Creative Director, Magnetix; Germany - Preethi Mariappan, Executive Creative Director, Razorfish; India - Sanjay Mehta, Joint Chief Executive Officer, Social Wavelength; Japan - Hiroshi Hori, Regional Digital Director, Hakuhodo; Norway - Markus Lind, Executive Creative Director, Good Morning; South Korea - Chi Young Kim, Senior Director, Innocean Worldwide; Sweden - Malin Ingewall, Chief Executive Officer, Member of the Board, Sticky Beat AB; UK - Andy Hood, Head of Emerging Technologies, AKQA; USA - Evan Schechtman, Chief Technology Officer, RadicalMedia; USA - Pierre Lipton, Chief Creative Officer, 360i; Global - Donald Chesnut, Chief Experience Officer, SapientNitro ...... 62nd Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, 21-27 June 2015, Cannes, France. The International Festival of Creativity, also known as Cannes Lions, is the world's leading celebration of creativity in communications. Founded in 1954, the Festival takes place every June in Cannes, France.
About - Preethi Mariappan, Executive Creative Director, Razorfish Germany. Before Preethi Mariappan took over management of the creative team at Razorfish as Executive Creative Director, she gained 17 years' experience in technology and product design in India, Dubai and Singapore. In Germany, she used to be employed as Digital Executive Creative Director (ECD) at TBWA. Her experience covers the entire spectrum of the digital business – from creation right up to strategic consultancy. Under her leadership, brands such as Nissan, Infiniti, GE, Volvo and GSK received many international awards.
Preethi Mariappan has received prizes at award events such as Cannes, SXSW, LIA, One Show, EPICA, Clios, D&AD, SABRE, Loeries, Dubai Lynx, CAPLES, and GEMAS Effies. Her work on a Bluetooth-based delivery platform resulted in a patentable product for the agency and in a new service for fast food delivery chains. Preethi Mariappan has been presented in prestigious international publications such as Springwise, Creativity Online, Contagious, PSFK, Mashable and now GoSee, and was a jury member for international awards such as Dubai Lynx and Clio Awards. Furthermore, Preethi Mariappan is the founder of Adwomen, a female community that promotes young female talents in advertising, business and technology.
