LISNR At Cannes Lions 2016

As soon as our feet hit the ground in France for Cannes Lions 2016, it was game on!

The weeklong International Festival of Creativity is always a nonstop rush of compelling things to do and experience, and LISNR was proud to be a part of the mix for Lions Innovation for the second year in a row as we continue to spread the word about our data-over-audio technology.

Here’s a recap of some LISNR highlights from Cannes Lions 2016.

First, of all it’s worthy to note that Rodney and I decided to fly into Milan and rent a convertible to take the scenic route into Cannes.  I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in, or energized by some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.  You leave Milan with the Alps and the Apennines mountains at your back, and drive down twisty roads until you break through the mountains and onto the highway that runs along the Cote d’Azur all the way down the coast.  It’s magical.

Speaking of magic … back to Cannes.

Our ‘Making Magic’ Keynote

Rodney Williams and I gave a keynote presentation titled “Making Magic: Inspiring the Impossible” on the Lions Innovation main stage. We shared the latest innovations in LISNR technology, shared some practical steps to build magic into your business and even used our own tech to make magic on stage.  For any of you who missed it, we used LISNR SmartTones to enable outdated technology and inanimate objects including microwaves, children’s toys and a 1980s boombox to communicate with iPads set up around the front of the stage.

We also ran into a few friends, including our friends at R/GA, who always help us spread the word about LISNR, and Material UK, the latest agency to sign with LISNR for live-event use cases. Rodney and I were interviewed in a Mercedes, and our friends at KITE and Partnered set up great office-hours opportunities for us.

Joining Unilever’s Foundry 50

We were also selected as part of Unilever’s Foundry 50, a group of 50 companies that Unilever selected after a worldwide search to find the next big innovations in the store and home of the future. The Foundry 50 showcased companies with a dedicated space within the Lions Innovation portion of the festival. We presented two demos, one for our in-store retail use case and another for our broadcast use case in a future home environment.

The broadcast demo used SmartTones to share enhanced content during an AXE commercial. As the commercial played, two iPads within the future home were activated by SmartTones to show corresponding content.

The in-store retail demo showed how a store visitor could have their experience improved via SmartTones. Using SmartTones, the store delivered reminders for her shopping list, shared complementary ingredients for a recipe based on a customer’s in-store location and powered the contactless payment process at checkout.

Other Cool Stuff

Virtual-reality demonstrations, visualization of data from movement analytics and authentication were the drivers behind the tech that impressed us most. In the Lions Innovation showcase, there was a 3D projector that appeared to show a giant floating Air Max shoe that looked so real you could reach out and touch it. This was the first time that I saw a physical manifestation of that kind of technology.  And, I wish I could show it to you, but when I tried to capture it in video, the quality of the image was corrupted pretty significantly.  So, I’ll wait until they figure that out!

We were also impressed with Bronze Lion winner Focus Motion’s presentation of visualizations of motion-based data — such as LeBron James shooting free throws or a police officer drawing, firing and holstering his handgun — as a means to improve sports performance or analyze inconsistencies or abnormalities of motion in comparison with regular actions. I believe this technology could also be put to use for online authentication, letting an individual’s regular personal movement, seen by a webcam, become a replacement for passwords.  We enjoyed hearing Klickly’s pitch at the R/GA Startup Academy pitch day about their “impulse payments technology” that allows for single-click payments in social, email and web.  (Not that I need any reason to only be required to click once to buy a new pair of Adidas UltraBoost sneakers.)

Lastly, it wouldn’t be Cannes without some parties to remember.  Vayner Media and Thrillistteamed up to throw a party in a villa and just happened to bring in special guest Wyclef Jean to DJ.  Daily Mail went all out with live music and yacht parties, and Pandora pulled together some of the best boat-related events during the festival.

Overall, it was an incredible year for LISNR at Cannes for the second year in a row.  Rodney and I put it out there publicly for the world to hear, that next year, LISNR is going to steal the show in Cannes.  We’re already hard at work on how to completely revolutionize the attendee experience, from ticketless and badgeless entry to proximity messages and audio-based VIP entry to events.  We’re excited to show the world what we’re up to.  Stay tuned.

Stay in touch with the LISNR team by following us @LISNR.

LISNR is a high frequency, inaudible technology; a new communication protocol that sends data over audio. As the leaders of the Internet of Sound, we use inaudible sound waves called SmartTones™, to transmit information.  LISNR essentially transmits customizable packets of data every second that enable proximity data transmission, second-screen functionality, authentication and low-fi device to deviceconnectivity on any LISNR enabled device.  We enable this functionality better and more efficiently than bluetooth (proximity), ACR (2nd Screen), and NFC/RFID (authentication). As an integrated software partner, LISNR can power devices to connect with world around better than ever before.