Published: March 2022
Large-scale crisis events such as natural disasters, recessions and global pandemics alter the global economic trajectory and change how we function. The 2008 financial crisis was responsible for the birth of a huge number of now multi-million-pound businesses. Businesses like Instagram, WhatsApp, Airbnb and more were started by young entrepreneurs, who, outside of the recession, may have been lapped up by graduate programmes or established companies. This is the perfect example of how a global catastrophe can encourage global innovation.
The pandemic is no exception, and innovation is blooming everywhere...
...In New York City, ‘sidewalk dining' is now a permanent
feature. Snow days have been scrapped and replaced with online school (sorry kids), and QR codes are the normality for restaurant menus these
days. We’ve seen snorkelling masks turned into ventilators and robotic
dogs roaming the parks in Singapore ensuring people maintain a safe
distance from each other. The world has welcomed Lego block robots made
by Syrian refugees at the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan that
automatically dispense sanitiser so people don’t have to touch the
bottle - truly amazing.
One huge, notable change we've had to be a part of in brand experiences and across the entire business sector, is the dramatic shift in business to virtual service delivery models across all sectors. As we enter the post-pandemic era, we have to provide a space for these innovations to flourish still. We can do so by reminding ourselves of those incredible innovation stories and by providing space for new ideas born during the pandemic to flourish.
That we can see demonstrated in the examples above, into a ground-breaking brand experience. Luckily enough, Virgin Media asked us to jump on board to help them deliver just that. As the UK’s fastest Fibre broadband option, Virgin Media wanted to showcase its rapid speeds, and its new Fibre product by creating new ways to “be together”, and giving something back in a time of crisis.
We developed the concept of Virgin Media ‘Two Hearts Pizzeria'. A physical pizzeria restaurant split in half, with the two halves located 400 miles apart, in London and Edinburgh. The interconnected, immersive 3D hologram-to-hologram experience enabled diners in each location to enjoy a meal, sitting across the ‘same’ restaurant table, cities apart. Twins were reunited, NHS heroes, mothers and daughters, and even whole families were given the opportunity to reconnect in a safe space.
Our Virgin Media 'Two Hearts Pizzeria' campaign demonstrates how rapid broadband speeds can bring “Star Trek” to life for earthbound humans in this pioneering world first. Hugely creative, technically complicated but incredibly impactful, we pushed the boundaries of possibility in this post-pandemic innovation example and brought space-age virtual presence within reach.
Our example is just a small glass window into the scale of innovation occurring globally in the virtual business space post-pandemic. There are buckets of impressive and thought-provoking work happening every day, and life, as we know it, has changed. The business world is becoming far more technology-driven as consumers bond with the digital space in new and exciting ways. We would not have been able to create and deliver a world-first campaign like ‘Two Hearts Pizzeria’ without our innovative team, adaptable and digital-ready infrastructure and the desire to deliver complex and big ideas. So don’t get left behind. Innovate, and continue to provide space for innovation. You won’t regret it. Check out our tips on innovating and humanising in our evolving world.