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Mindography for INSTAX by HERO/McCannDespite instax’s share and sales advantage in Australia, an enduring challenge has always been its misattribution to legacy competitor brand, Polaroid which dominates share-of-mind. To launch the instax mini link 3 and elevate instax as a leading, innovative brand in Aussie millennial's minds, we needed to create an ownable story that set the brand apart. We looked to instax’s DNA of instant printed images and commitment to innovation and how we could make this relevant in modern culture.
Studies showed that printed photos evoke more emotion and even make us value memories more. However, the advent of smartphones now means that everyone has a camera with them 24/7, creating an abundance of stored digital photos instead. Research shows that over 5bn are taken daily and less than 1% are printed. For decades, instax has helped people capture, print and instantly hold onto their memories. The brand truth presented an opportunity that was perfect for current market and cultural conditions, but we knew we had to do it in a way that only instax could capture the hearts and minds of our attention-poor, millennial audience. How do you make the world realise how much a physical photo means?
You show them.
Through [Mind]ography, we put Nicole Toum’s memories of her late father in her hands – by printing them directly from her mind.
[Mind]ography combined Functional MRI (fMRI) brain scans and cutting-edge AI to literally reconstruct and print Nicole Toum’s memories.
It is an experiment that created the world’s first printed memories. But it is also the story of a young woman who got to relive her most cherished moments with her late father, of her seeing and touching those memories and then sharing them with the world.
In the words of Dr Paul Scotti, Princeton Neuroscience Institute: “This is literally cutting edge, mind reading research. An experiment that sits at the intersection of science and art.” The instax mini Link 3 is an instant smartphone printer. Studies show that printed photos mean more than digital photos – they evoke more emotion and make us value memories more. But of the 5bn photos taken daily, only 1% are printed. We needed to show the value of printing memories.
Mindography is a world-first experiment that printed Nicole’s memories of her late father. It combined cutting-edge fMRI and Ai technology to interpret Nicole’s brain scans, reconstruct her memories, and print those memories as images.
Created in partnership with neuroscientist Dr Paul Scotti of Princeton University and UNSW Research Imaging, the memories were displayed in a gallery, and drove exceptional results:
20M earned impressions and publicity in the likes of Variety Magazine increased share-of-mind, while an 800% increase in engagement indicated relevance to our audience. A 102% increase in sales suggests that consumers opted for instax over key competitor Polaroid.