Mindshare: Internet-Enabled Intimacy for the Holidays
This week on Mindshare’s Culture Vulture Live, Alexis Fragale talks about StoryCorps, an organization dedicated to recording and sharing stories across all walks of life.
Last week, StoryCorps made headlines for launching The Great Thanksgiving Listen, a special project designed to get teenagers to interview their family members over the holiday. Participation was made easy, thanks to their app, which provides suggested questions, records the interview, and uploads it for you.
So how did this project do? For perspective, since 2003 StoryCorps had collected and archived over 60,000 stories. But last week alone, they uploaded 37,000 new ones. The recorded interviews are stored online through the Library of Congress, made public for future generations to hear.
The growth of StoryCorp follows another trend that we’ve been tracking at Mindshare: Internet-Enabled Intimacy.
The vast amount of digital connection that we have today has helped fuel more intimacy between strangers and friends alike. People are constantly sharing pieces of their lives online, connecting with one another over shared experiences and feelings.
In fact, technology is actually opening up routes to intimacy that may have otherwise never existed. For instance, the Apple Watch lets users share their heartbeats. And the T.Jacket is a vest that hugs its wearer and can be controlled remotely; it's designed specifically for the mothers of autistic children.
For brands and marketers, there’s an opportunity to look at how you can facilitate or create consumer intimacy with technology in creative ways.
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