Wieden + Kennedy’s madcap little apps for Sony’s waterproof phone have real standout.
“We didn’t want to do the obvious thing and show the phone in the toilet, say, or some other everyday water hazard. Instead, we wanted to focus on fun, real apps that only work underwater. That way consumers wouldn’t feel the need to be educated about how it works, they would just know – as evidenced by these underwater apps – that it worked.” [W+K, group account director, trish Adams]
So W+K took its brief to introduce the Xperia Z1S waterproof mobile phones and created not an ad campaign but a series of apps that can be used in and under the water – an app that lets you sing in the rain without forgetting the words, another that turns your phone into a tiny umbrella…and another that lets you parent a Tomagotchi-like plant…
Nice idea, wasn’t it? W+K came up with the idea and produced all the apps. They’re charmingly silly and endearingly oddball.
W+K worked with development partners, Motim and SoftFacade, to develop the apps. Sony is making the source code for the feature available via Github, so other developers can play with different uses, too. Sean Pecknold of Society directed the videos that show off watch each app can do.
“Once we figured out that we wanted to make a series of apps that worked underwater, we had to figure out exactly what we wanted them to do. Early on, we decided that we wanted them to be quick and fun. Then we pretty much sat around in a small group and riffed. We came up with quite a few ideas, but chose the six we produced because we felt they were different enough from one another to show off a good range of what’s possible with a waterproof phone. [W+K copywriter, Charlie Gschwend]
Hot fave has to Rainy-oke. A drag queen performing Cyndi Lauper has everything going for it.
But the inherent stupidity of Tiny Umbrella comes a close second.
Save Goldie by submerging your phone in water
Plantimal grows in its daily water bath
Sink Sunk is a tiny submarine game to play in the bath (or kiddy pool)
Photo Lab lets you “develop” photos by dunking the phone in water.
