People wearing SAY Necklaces
It’s exciting to step outside of the Bay Area sometimes, and see what’s happening with technology in the rest of the world and this week we go to Tel Aviv, considered the Silicon Valley of Israel with SAY Wearables. It’s a device that turns fashion into endless forms of self-expression, let’s people share social content while looking up at each other rather than down at their phones, and promises to be a powerful way for companies to connect more deeply to their fans.
SAY Wearables works on 3 levels. One, as a social experience device and platform for individualization. It can be worn as a necklace or on clothing, purses and hats and connects to your phone so you can export from any social media app or website, anytime, anywhere to visually share with your friends. It’s unique in the social media sphere in that you can also export created content, videos and photos in seconds.
Two, SAY Wearables works as a social engagement tool for brands. It’s perfect for large beverage, sports and entertainment companies as a platform for sending information to fans about cool events or as a way to create exciting group experiences at concerts and games. All they have to do is push content to customers via the device on their clothing. Take PokemanGo for example, with a SAY device, customers could collect clothing instead of cards and update those pieces with characters at any time and interact with other fans at a glance. SAY includes business intelligence and data analysis on the back-end that allows companies to get up to the minute information about their customer’s interests which turns this into a dynamic marketing tool with nearly endless possibilities. What’s cool about this feature in addition to its reach, is that it might also help support sustainability as brand merchandise can be updated to display new images at the push of a button rather than having to produce new pieces for new characters and stories.
The third way that SAY Wearables works, is as a personal networking tool. Set the things you love to do to “public” and once you pass by a SAY user with the same common interests the content on both devices will automatically switch to display the same “matched” content images. It’s a great way to meet people and the perfect conversation starter.
SAY WearablesSay Wearable necklaces at a concert
Here are some examples of SAY Wearables in action: Imagine you buy a Marvel baseball cap and every day it sends segments of the latest Marvel graphic novel which you then share with your friends. Or, you want to customize a necklace you’re wearing with a gorgeous picture of the beach to match your mood or your outfit. Later, you’re standing at a concert with 20,000 people, the same message flashes on everyone’s hat, shoes, or tee shirts and you all freeze at the same time. Suddenly you’re sharing your experience with everyone at the concert making the moment that much more memorable. The next day, you’re at a café and an artist friend shares their latest installation with you and everyone on their Instagram page, ensuring an audience of thousands rather than hundreds. A week later, you’re on a business trip and want to meet people. You tap in your music preferences and next thing you know, a nice stranger has walked up and said “hey, I see you love rap. Me too. What other music do you like?” The next thing you know, they’ve turned you on to all the best hidden nightclubs in the city. With so much potential to connect people to great experiences through products, it’s no surprise, that the company has been approached by some big names such as organizers of the Superbowl and members of Beyoncés team.
Dreamed up 25 years ago, by Eitan Lev, as a way to overcome the isolation created by digital technology and use instead, to connect people, SAY Wearables became a reality when he retired from working at Conduit, one of the biggest digital POS communications companies in the world. Finally, it was time to bring the dream alive. Together with Suriel Ben Dahan CTO, his son Shaked Lev, and other top-level engineers from Israel’s biggest tech firms, he began development. Since then, the company has attracted 1.5 million in seed funding from companies such as Venture Spring, the angel investor firm out of London run by Cassandra Harris that aims to connect start-ups with large investors. They’ve also teamed up with BioWorld, a branding company that designs clothing and accessories for companies like Disney and Pixar.
While SAY Wearables is an incredible marketing tool with endless potential, it is, at its roots about bringing people closer together. That is the purpose for which Eitan Lev dreamed it, and the one his son is equally passionate about. They want people to look up, see someone sharing information and enter into a conversation. They want to see people use this as an artistic form of expression. Why? Community is a strong part of Israeli culture. When I spoke with Shaked Lev, he talked about how his grandparents were holocaust survivors and about his 7 years in the Navy. “Don’t believe the news about Israel,” Shaked says with pride. “We are a country that is deeply committed to respecting people of all faiths and cultures. We undergo massive training in the military on how to respect and understand the many people who live in Israel from different beliefs.” I asked him if technology is big in Israel and he laughed, “absolutely, Israel itself is a “start-up.” We created a country from scratch just 70 years ago. It’s why we’re so good at launching new businesses.” It’s true, the popular worker app, Fiverr, the successful website building platform WIX and the sandal company Teva are all from Israel and all have community and self-expression at their core.
Given that fashion is quickly becoming a platform for experiences that extend beyond fabric and style, the timing for SAY Wearables is perfect and brands who want to connect in better ways to consumers should be lining up at their door.
[“Source-forbes”]
