Issue #062

Welcome to your weekly dose of TooXToo, this week featuring a welcome party, Alula making cancer less lonely, investors starting young & Pangaia’s product passports.  

Guinness welcomes us back to the pub… 

Lockdown restrictions are easing and the pubs are now open!  

For those who were desperate for their first pint of Guinness, the brand are pulling out all the stops to get your mouth watering.  

Their latest ad, set to the classic song ‘Always on My Mind’ features the visual motif of a pint of Guinness in some unexpected ways.  

The campaign follows a £30m support pledge from Guinness to UK pub and hospitality businesses – an even better excuse to get back to the boozer for a pint.

Alula make cancer less lonely  

Community and marketplace, Alula is a space for cancer patients and loved ones, helping them to navigate the most daunting aspects of dealing with their illness.  

The site is split into three key areas: ‘Find the stuff’ – a marketplace featuring everything from medical supplies to wardrobe stables; ‘Find the help’ – digital tools to help remove burden and finally ‘Find the truth’ where users can find a collection of stories from patients, survivors and caregivers.  

The site, founded by cancer survivor, Liya Shuster-Bier acts as a welcome space for those feeling lonely in their illness.  

“I founded Alula from five years of painful personal experience with cancer. First as a caregiver, then as a patient and now was a survivor. Until you’ve been there, you have no idea what to expect, or even ask, when you need help the most.” 

Investment? Start ‘em Young 

Stockstars, the new in-app game from Snapchat gives young people access to education and the gamification of investment. 

The game gives players $1m in fake money to invest in a virtual portfolio that uses real-time data to mirror the real-life stock market. Players can pretend at trading stocks and cryptocurrencies, while using in-game educational resources to study trading jargon as well as the commercial contexts of the real companies at the centre of their fake investments.  

Players can also challenge their friends to one-minute, one-day, and five-day trading challenges to see who can amass the most profit in a given time period.  

The majority of Snapchat users are young, so this game could act as many users’ first introduction to financial investment.

 

Pangaia’s Product Passports  

Mindful consumption is top of the agenda for many and with this in mind it-brand Pangaia has partnered with Eon to create ‘digital passports’ for all its products.  

The ‘digital twin’ for every product helps to centralise all information providing real time access to details including where the item was made, and how to wash, handle, repair or even destroy it responsibly.   

Key to the concept is that the details can be added retrospectively in real-time as fresh information becomes available, effectively making the product itself a direct line to the brand. For instance, feeding a new method of caring for the fabric into the product’s profile that may not have been around when the garment was first made.