Tag: Connected Objects

Jibo: The Social Robot for the Family

A robot that provides a personal and meaningful human experience is set to become reality through Jibo, an 11 inch tall, 6 pound, swiveling circular robot. Friendly, helpful and intelligent, Jibo is billed as the world’s first social robot for the family. Here, “social robot” means a robot designed to feel present and interactive in everyday home life, not just to complete tasks.

Here is a short demo video created for its crowdfunding campaign.

The pitch is “relationship”, not “utility”

The mechanism is straightforward. A small tabletop robot with a swiveling body and a screen uses motion, timing, and conversational cues to feel present in the room, rather than behaving like a static gadget. That matters because a sense of presence makes the product easier to imagine in the home than a static device would.

In consumer technology launches, the hard part is not explaining what the product does. It is making people feel why they would want it in their home.

Why it lands

This works because it frames the robot as a character. When a device has personality, the viewer stops evaluating it like a spec sheet and starts imagining it as part of daily routines. That shift is exactly what a crowdfunding-style launch needs, because belief and emotional attachment matter before the product is widely available.

Extractable takeaway: If you are launching something unfamiliar, do not lead with feature lists. Lead with a clear role the audience can picture, then use design and behavior to make that role feel natural and desirable.

What the business intent really is

The demo video is doing more than product explanation. It is creating a category frame. “Social robot for the family” is a positioning stake, and the crowdfunding moment is the fastest way to turn curiosity into momentum, pre-orders, and a community that will advocate for the concept.

The real question is not whether the robot can do enough, but whether people can imagine wanting it around them every day. For a product like this, positioning the relationship comes before explaining the utility.

What product marketers should borrow

  • Make a new category legible. Give the audience a simple label they can repeat to others.
  • Use behavior as proof. How the product moves, reacts, and “shows attention” can persuade faster than technical claims.
  • Sell the role. “What is this in my life” beats “what is this in the lab”.
  • Build community early. Crowdfunding works best when supporters feel like first insiders, not early buyers.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Jibo?

Jibo is a small tabletop robot positioned as a “social robot for the family”, designed to deliver a more personal, human-feeling interaction than a typical gadget.

How big is it?

The project describes Jibo as about 11 inches tall and around 6 pounds.

What does “social robot” mean here?

It refers to a robot designed for human interaction and presence in the home, using behavior and personality cues rather than only task execution.

Why launch via a crowdfunding demo video?

Because new categories need belief before they need scale. A demo video can communicate the role, the feeling, and the promise quickly, then convert interest into early supporters.

What is the main lesson for product marketers?

When the product is unfamiliar, show the “relationship” it creates in context, then let the technology sit behind the experience.

Oscar Mayer: Wake Up and Smell the Bacon

If you would like to wake up to the sound of sizzling bacon on the stove and its aroma drawing you out of bed, then head over to www.wakeupandsmellthebacon.com and answer three questions for a chance to win the special bacon-scented iPhone attachment.

The contest is being run by Oscar Mayer, and they are giving away 4700 bacon-scented iPhone attachments over the next month. Winners can then use a custom Oscar Mayer alarm app to automatically activate the iPhone attachment every morning.

How the stunt is engineered

The mechanism is a neat combination of utility and theatre: a giveaway device plus a dedicated alarm app. The theatre is the story-worthy prop that makes the idea easy to retell.

In FMCG marketing, a physical add-on that turns a brand promise into a daily ritual can outperform a one-off ad because it creates repetition without feeling like repetition.

The real question is whether you can turn a product cue into a repeatable moment people choose to replay.

This is a strong stunt because it earns replay inside an existing morning routine, not just in a one-time impression.

Why it lands

This works because the alarm app and scent attachment turn Oscar Mayer’s core cue into a repeatable, at-home sensory demo.

Extractable takeaway: Scent and sound work as marketing when they are attached to an existing habit. If the brand can own a repeatable moment in the day, the campaign shifts from impression to ritual.

It turns a product truth into a sensory demo. Oscar Mayer does not need to persuade you that bacon is appealing. It just recreates the cue that already does the persuading.

It makes the call-to-action playful. “Enter to win” is normally forgettable. Here it is a gateway to a story-worthy object, so the contest itself becomes shareable.

It upgrades branded content into branded utility. Branded utility here means a tool people use for their own sake. The alarm is not only entertainment. It is a behavior change, because the phone becomes part of a new wake-up routine.

Borrowable moves from the bacon alarm

  • Pair a simple app with a tangible artifact. Physical wins feel rarer than digital, which increases talk value, meaning how likely people are to mention it unprompted.
  • Design for daily replay. The strongest “stunts” are the ones that can be re-experienced without needing a second ad.
  • Make the entry mechanic frictionless. Fewer questions, faster entry, and the prize does the marketing.

A few fast answers before you act

What is being promoted here?

A contest for a bacon-scented iPhone attachment, supported by an alarm app that triggers the attachment in the morning.

Why does this qualify as more than a gimmick?

Because it converts a brand promise into a repeatable experience. The “demo” happens in the user’s real life, not just on screen.

What is the main behavior change the campaign creates?

It pulls the brand into a daily wake-up habit, which creates repeated exposure without needing repeated media placements.

What makes it shareable?

The object is inherently story-worthy. People can describe it instantly, and the idea is unusual enough to travel as a headline.

What is the key risk?

Link rot and platform change. If the app link, device compatibility, or contest site stops working, the core mechanic collapses.

Polar Beer: Cell Phone Nullifier

There is a specific kind of modern annoyance. You go out with friends, and ten minutes later the table is lit by phone screens instead of conversation.

Polar, a regional Brazilian beer brand, decides to treat that as a solvable problem. If phones steal the night, then the beer should give it back.

A beer cooler that changes the rules of the table

The mechanism is a physical prop with a blunt promise. A special Polar cooler is described as blocking 3G, 4G, Wi Fi, and GSM signals for devices within roughly a five-foot radius. Order Polar. Get served in the cooler. Watch the room look up.

In bar and nightlife settings, the strongest behavior-change ideas work when they attach to an existing ritual and alter it with minimal effort from the audience.

Because the cooler makes the phone temporarily useless at the table, conversation becomes the path of least resistance.

Why it lands, even if people hate it for a minute

This plays with a familiar tension. Everyone complains about “phubbing,” the habit of snubbing people in front of you by focusing on your phone, but nobody wants to be the first person to say “can we put phones away.” The cooler does the awkward social work on behalf of the group.

Extractable takeaway: If a social norm is breaking down, redesign the environment so the better behavior becomes the default. Remove the need for a lecture, and replace it with a small constraint that everyone experiences equally.

The brand benefit is also clean. Polar is not asking for attention. It is buying it back for you, then sitting at the center of the moment it created.

What the stunt is really selling

On the surface it is a gadget. Underneath it is a positioning move. Polar equates itself with real-world connection and the kind of night people say they want, even when their hands keep reaching for the screen.

The real question is whether you can earn attention by subtracting distraction, not by adding more stimulation.

This is a smart positioning move because it delivers the promise through the ritual, not through a slogan.

It is also a reminder that “anti-tech” can be a tech story. The cooler is not anti phone as an identity. It is pro conversation as an outcome.

Steal this for phone-free nights

  • Target the moment, not the attitude. Fix the table behavior, not the entire relationship with smartphones.
  • Use a prop that belongs in the setting. A cooler at a bar feels natural. A lecture does not.
  • Make it equal. The constraint applies to everyone in range, so it feels like a shared game, not a personal attack.
  • Build a story people retell in one sentence. “The beer that makes your phone stop” spreads fast.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Polar’s “Cell Phone Nullifier”?

It is a branded beer cooler concept described as cutting off nearby phone connectivity, so people ordering Polar are nudged into talking to each other instead of scrolling.

Why does blocking the signal work as a behavior-change tactic?

It removes the temptation rather than arguing with it. By changing the environment, it turns “I should put my phone away” into “my phone is not part of the table right now.”

What is the core creative mechanism here?

A familiar bar object is redesigned to enforce a social norm. The product ritual, ordering beer and receiving it in a cooler, becomes the delivery system for the idea.

How can brands adapt this without feeling preachy?

Focus on shared benefits and shared participation. Make the intervention playful and collective, and keep the user action simple and voluntary.

What is the biggest risk if you copy this idea?

If the constraint feels forced or punitive, it becomes the story instead of the conversation it was meant to protect. Keep it lightweight, contextual, and easy to opt into.