We’re delighted to announce that yboo, a free-to-download app designed to find a user’s best mobile contract deal, is the latest addition to The Lucre Group’s ‘Tech and the City’ division.
Putting UK consumers at the heart of what it does, yboo is the first app in the world to offer personalised network recommendations based on price and signal strength in the areas where users live, work and hang out. Using powerful big data insights, the ambitious technology company is currently disrupting the mobile industry with its innovative service and is changing the landscape for how consumers purchase mobile deals in the process
Appointed on retainer within the growing ‘Tech and the City’ division, The Lucre Group will support with yboo’s pioneering plans of kickstarting a mobile bill saving revolution. From experiential event planning through to driving awareness across consumer media, trade and digital channels, our work will ensure that yboo is known and used by mobile customers across the UK.
Martyn Gould, CEO of yboo said: “With more people realising the cost saving implications of switching their mobile contract, our app provides consumer clarity on what the best network provider is for them based on price and signal coverage – a first in the UK market. The Lucre Group really understood what our brand was about and what we hoped to achieve, in addition to being armed with creative ideas on how to inform and excite the public. This is the next step in growing the company, and we can’t wait to start working with the team.”
Sophie Spyropoulos, Lucre co-owner and Director added: “It’s an exciting time for yboo and we’re delighted to be chosen as the trusted PR partner. The business has gone from strength to strength in a very short space of time, with ambitious growth plans, and we look forward to supporting them on that journey, building brand awareness among the UK public and in the mobile industry. It’s a fantastic new addition to our rapidly expanding ‘Tech and The City’ division.”
I’ve long been a fan of Virtual Reality and have eagerly been waiting to see and experience its applications in everyday life. You can therefore imagine my sheer delight when the BBC announced the launch of a VR service for viewers to experience the 2016 Rio Olympics in immersive 360 degrees style. The Beeb will broadcast around 100 hours of live events and highlights packages throughout the 16-day event, offering viewers at home a completely new viewing experience.
Viewers will have to download a new BBC Sport 360 app, which is available on iOS and Android Play and purchase a VR headset, with prices for a cheap cardboard one starting from just a few pounds. A bargain!
With the BBC’s decision to roll out this experimental service, we’re finally seeing VR technology starting to creep into the mainstream. This is a new and exciting time for many creative industries, as the technology will offer opportunities for campaigns and agencies to stand out, especially in PR sector.
A few companies have started capitalising on the technology, especially those in sectors that are inherently suited for the “immersive experience”. For example, Thomas Cook launched the “Try Before You Fly” campaign, allowing prospective customers to experience their destinations virtually before purchasing their holidays. Nvidia invited members of the media to experience their new graphics card by virtually climbing Mount Everest from a London warehouse compete with freezing temperatures, wind and fake snow!
Sure, live VR technology is still expensive (think tens of thousands of pounds for a few minutes of video) but 360° photos are already here and you can create them with a smartphone and the right app. Facebook already allows users to post 360° pictures, with important opportunities for certain sectors. Property developers could show you around a house with the help of a VR headset and a 360° picture without the need to leave your home. You could have a virtual look around a venue to assert its suitability for an event before deciding whether it’s worth viewing it in person or not.
The possibilities we see here are endless and I’m sure these will be very exciting times for PR agencies and the wider creative industry alike.
The tech and innovation sector has taken a step forward, according to reports in the Guardian and elsewhere; Google employees have proposed a new set of emojis designed to promote workplace gender equality.
These emojis would include female engineers, plumbers, farmers and chemists.The Google team presented the designs of 13 new emojis on Tuesday at the Unicode Consortium, a Silicon Valley not-for-profit group that runs an “emoji subcommittee” overseeing the creation of new emojis. (Who knew?)
Turns out there is a whole world dedicated to emojis and their creation. You can read the full proposal here, and it makes for fascinating reading. Here at Lucre Towers we’ve been going through Emojipedia and finding out if we’re right about the meaning of each emoji (the answer is yes, because we’re all about tech and innovation PR here).
Jeremy Burge, the founder of both the online resource Emojipedia and World Emoji Day (yep, that’s a thing and it’s on July 17 2016, so don’t miss it) was reported as saying: “It’s pretty clear that female-oriented professions are under-represented in emoji, and this approach is a clever way to address the issue now, rather than pushing it down the line.” We couldn’t agree more. And… about time.
