Ep. 275 Hannah Luxenberg

Are you looking for your next wine challenge? Do you want to taste more than three hundred wines in four days? How about joining a community of passionate, qualified Italian wine specialists, and gaining one of the most coveted qualifications in the wine world? Apply now to Davini international academy, and you'll have all this at your fingertips. Pedro Balesteros master of wine says, Via is the only Italian wine program that delivers high quality training and serious exam More details on our website, w w w dot vinital international dot com. Italian wine podcast. Chincin with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast with me Monty Alden. My guest today is Hannah Luxembourg. Tonok? A company's called tactic. Is that right? He says producer. Is that right, or not? Yes. I am the producer and the project manager for tactic. Okay. So I'll start that again. That's my incompetence. Hello. This is an extremely dull British English person speaking to a very clever lady in getting her company business wrong, so I'm gonna do that again. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast. My name is Walter. What are my guests today? Is Hannah Luxembourg Tono, and a company's called tactic. And what is tactic? So tactic is a visual effects immersive integration. I messed up myself. No. No. Did you? Yeah. I did. Interactive, studio. So what does that mean? And why do you why do you do it? What the business model? So we build immersive applications for brands. So these are immersive stories that are told on products in augmented reality. Okay. So what is give me a typical example of a brand, I guess, let's stick to a wine brand rather than, I don't know, car brand. Mhmm. And when you say immersive, what do you mean? So it means that the physical world is blended with the virtual world through your mobile phone. And so a good example of this is nine in crimes, and one of the most popular examples. And so when you're looking at the wine bottle with your phone, it comes to life. The figure and the characters on the bottle actually speak to you about their history. So how's that done. How does the your phone read what's it reading from the bottle to know that it's gonna start showing you this movie, if you like? So we're using computer vision technology. And so we use software that recognizes a late mobile based off of the different designs. And then we match that up, and we build the experience in Studio to be based off of that computer recognition on your mobile device. So do you actually you're filming or not to get that to get that content? We are not filming. We, actually, we can use a green screen room now to record different experiences in people in three d, which is very new, and put them on bottles. But we explicitly work off of design files and then build within our studio and software. Okay. So what is a design file? Design file is basically just an AI file, an illustrator. Yeah. Well, this is a form. We're gonna be expert on acronyms at the end of this, podcast. That that's what Silicon Valley is all about. Right? But it's just an illustrator file. The same design that people print onto their products, we take that. And it we put that into the software. And then we see what the computer vision picks up. And this is based on on contrast. When you say based on a contrast is a technical term for light and shade, right, different shade? Oh, that's correct. Right. That that's how a computer distinguishes, the files. Okay. So I'm I'm gonna come to you. I I make a wine. I I did make one. Let's call it Chateau Monty. Yeah. My Chateau Monty brand has got its label with my, you know, Chateau Monty letters on it. No photos, no images at all, a bit of design, different colors, and stuff, but that's it. It's just basically words. I stick my wine in the supermarket, shop, whatever, and, I've been working with you so that when someone walks past it's a mobile phone and takes a photo of it, something happens. But the process of, what do you have to do? You physically have to see me. You have to physically film me. You have to physically photograph me, or you can just do it all on a computer keyboard. Do we actually have to meet? We do not have to actually meet. So it really is gonna AI, isn't it? It's like, sci fi. It it is sci fi. Were you a Star Wars geek when you were a kid? I I do love Star Wars, and I love ILM, very much in dis ILM. Industrial light and magic. Okay. In Silicon Valley. The creators of of Star Wars and everything Lukasfilms. And so this, this is sci fi technology. And this is what Silicon Valley is calling it. And this is what investors are calling it as well. And so, yeah, I don't need to film you. We we can. We can do motion capture. And this was used earlier on in nineteen crimes, but we, we no longer have to do this. I mean, we have bottles where there are women who are no longer with us, and and we can't go film them. All we have is an old photograph. Right of them, and we study them. We study the videos of them. Their movements, how they spoke as people because those attempt the details are very important to us. But how do you do that? If if it just say I launch a wine called my granny's res, Right? And I only got one photo of my granny in nineteen thirty seven or something in black and white, a small photo. In those days, they would have been quite small. How on earth are you gonna create a video from that that some guy or girl in supermarket is gonna get a video experience just by literally walking past my bottle. Yes. So we do need a picture that is large enough for us to put on the bottle for the camera to recognize. That's more of the the technical aspects. However, you know, if it's grainy and old, we've touched up things before. You know, we have midnight moon, which is a moonshine. And we have junior Johnson, who is a legend, right? And he has a very old photograph. His junior is he a box of people where? He's a, a race car driver. Oh, okay. And he actually started his moonshine business by bootlegging and by racing to get away from the police. It's an amazing story. I hope you're not doing both at the same time, drinking his hooch and shoving fast. Oh, I I don't know about the the time and the place that it was. All you what you're saying, all you need just with one image, just like Mickey Mouse. You could just take one image of Mickey Mouse. And you could add legs and arms and movements. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. So how long does that take? And who's doing that? It depends on the complexity of the photo and image that we have. And you have to ask yourself, is it going to be two d and flat, or is this going to be a three d character? Yes. Oh, two d? Yes. I thought it was a two d as in light. Is it gonna be two d? Two two d or three d? Two dimensional or three-dimensional character. These are two very different things. Go and explain. I won't get too deep into this. Go on. Go on. But so if you have a three d character, this character moves in space. You can see the sides of their face. You can see them move their their head up and down. They look like a a real figure. And this is shown in Embraising. We have these characters who who are moving and look very real. We model those in three d. And then you have something like wrap rabbel. Rabbel. Rabbel wines. Yes. Okay. And those are the scenes that we have such as Pompeii. And those are beautiful. Those are actually illustrations. And some of those are are two d, right? Because they're flatter. So when you say Rabbel, do you mean a crowd of people? Or travel as in chaos. Okay. So those scenes are based off of the wrath of nature. And they're very, chaotic beautiful scenes where nature destroys the scene that you're looking at. And then what happens? That's always a bit of drama, right? It's very dramatic. And so have different, sir, transitions. So the one that we saw today during the presentation was a giant comet that came over and and turned into a, a Phoenix and destroyed the town. And then we transition out of that with a giant blast of fire. And that's the end of the scene. There are very short scenes, but they're very compelling. Okay. So I'm in the supermarket again. Sorry to keep going back to this book. And it's the movie that I see on my phone is what? Ten seconds, twenty seconds? Usually they range to, about ten to thirty seconds. Right. So how much, how many days of work, or man hours, or woman hours, or people hours, or sci fi hours does that does that take? I know you're gonna say it depends on the client, and it depends on the this and that, but just give us some, throw out some examples of time, time constraints, and budget. Gets as well? It starts at six weeks. That that's the shortest. Yes. Mhmm. So you're really, this is this technology at the moment is is something that the bigger brand players could probably invest in or as a small producer is not is not gonna get anywhere near. Right? We work with people. We really want people to be able to use this technology, not not just the big brands, right? Because we do have great brands like Coca Cola and Jack Dan meals. It's wonderful. And and they have Never. Never at all. They have ten minutes worth of content. That's a lot, and it's all interactive. But Rable wines, they're a smaller winery in California. I mean, how how small? Do, ma'am, are they? Oh, I'm not I'm not a wine expert. So I'm not Okay. I want no mind. But they're smaller. They're independent. And so we work, we work with people to to offer a relationship that builds over time, and we're able to offer smaller companies experiences. Just do you do sort of the the RT bit, or you're also giving them brand advice, branding advice, market guidance, or do you just leave that to the to them? And so listen, you asked us to do a ten seconds video with three explosions and a couple of dog in, your brand went bankrupt, and it's not our fault, or you is it more joined up than that? So we actually guide our clients through everything. So we begin by offering, different types of experiences that they could have. Right? Some some people come to us and they they know exactly what they want. You know, some people don't. They they don't know how to start. They they don't necessarily know how to tell the story. So we give pitches and we develop story boards and show how this can be done, all the way through creative production, all the way through engineering and development, even through analytics, even through release icing. And how do we put this out there and how do we market the actual AR marketing itself? The AR. Yeah. How do we What is the AR, this virus? No acronyms allowed. Ogranted reality. There you go. It's a ten dollar fine every time you come over there. Okay. I'll go broke. With a USB or an AR or a DIO or whatever. I mean, we know that the creative industry, the egos are can be massive. There are all sorts of areas where conflict can occur, are, you know, are artistic different is. How do you, you can a partly psychologist, as well as techy and, business? I would say so. Cause you've got a, like, you've got a, it's like a football team in America. You are. AT people all have a stake in the project working for a particular client, and they've got their stakeholders as well. So your people's skills must be pretty good. Right? I I would say so, you know, I'm a producer. So I'm supposed to have people skills, but honestly, I I love our clients. I have a special relationship with all of them, and I I'm with them every single step of the way through the experience. You know, whenever they have a doubt about anything, I'm I'm there to with that, and apart from, say, budgets and things like that. But, I mean, are we talking about artistic doubt doubts or, or that the the mark did we get our marketing right? Then maybe that you'd had a great quotes video and the label was great and the wine was super. But it just didn't work. Does that get to the finger pointing stage? Do the retailers get blamed? Do you get blamed? Well, I have to say, so far, all of our experiences have worked. We haven't had anyone unhappy. You know, everyone has a different experience. Mostly, it's getting set up with the application, going through the whole process of releasing an app, it it can be a lot. And, you know, that's what I'm there to work with them through. If there's a problem with marketing or, you know, how do we reach people, you know, they come to us, and then we give them a solution. So it's okay. You know, maybe we're not reaching as many people here. You know, we have to market this. But is that is that solution based on going back and doing more market research or go looking back at the the product that you've created and tweaking it? We look at the analytics because we're tracking everything. We're seeing all the user data. We're seeing where people are looking. We're seeing what scenes they're actually engaging with. How far are they making? But how are you tracking that? How are you tracking that? Because when they when they when they their phone scans the label. Yes. But isn't there like kind of big brother y kind of thing where you where you're then only appealing to the people that kind of get your way of doing things. You know, there's all sorts of discussions about social media. I know that it's not social media, but but this idea of, as telling people that we've never met, lots of stuff about ourselves, our sex lives, our diets, our labs, and our hates. Mhmm. You know, is there not that sort of danger that, we're only gonna talk to our own echo chambers? Yes. This is a very important conversation. And we're seeing this conversation come up a lot more with social media, and this is a social space. Right? So when we track data, we're very careful, and we're extremely compliant. And we don't ask for explicit information. So, of course, if we have a wine application, depending on which country you're in, you have an age gate. And this allows a user to put in their age. So in the US, you have to, by law, put in your age. And we do collect that data. So we're able to see what age group people are are entering the app. And we we tell them. So we have all of our privacy policies. We're fully transparent on this, and it's really important to us to do that. But we don't know anything else about them. We don't know Sex. Their gender. Nope. We don't know that. Unless we actually wanted to gather that, gather that data, and we gave them a form. And then they could decide if they want to give that information. Yep. That's right. Do they want to give us that? We haven't we have an gender yet. You know, it's not really a big concern or interest. Well, sure. Well, that's quite key, isn't it? I mean, you know, some, I don't know, cliches, ladies like Rosays and boys like chunky reds. I mean, we know that's simplistic that's still quite useful information to know, isn't it? It could be. It depends on what the client wants. If they wanted to track it, definitely. We could. But they have to lay that out. I mean, obviously, it's a question on the phone. Would you like to tell us your sex? Yes. That is right. We have to be completely clear to the user, and they can give us that information, or they don't have to. What about in terms of, the time frame? I could walk around a supermarket with the phone in your app and photograph literally every bottle and not make any purchase from Walker just for fun. Right? How does that grew up your your analytics? It doesn't. But I knew you were gonna say that. So basically, what we are seeing from these analytics is that once a person does scan an experience, they're more likely to put it in their cart. That's what we're seeing based on the the use of the app and how many times we're gathering retention, if that makes sense. What's happening? So that's how many times one unique user returns to look at the app. And we're seeing this happen, a week later. A few weeks later, we're seeing that one user do it, which is very interesting. And so that means that they've they've purchased a bottle. Okay. And they may not have drunk it yet, and then just checking what they bought. Is that right? Maybe. Maybe. Yes, or maybe they're going back to the store. We don't know. But usually the clients at least want them. But how come you don't know that bit? You know everything about them? You know? Yes. Loo roll they have on color. We can't we can't track them. I can't look to see when they're going home and when they're going to store, that would definitely be pretty creepy. But I'm happy I don't know that information about our customers. But the thing that the goal is to get people holding the product. That is the goal. So so pick it up off the shelf. Mhmm. How how often have you been sued by people that were taking it off from getting their phone out, they've dropped the bottle. Oh goodness. You gotta have an app for that, an explosion app or something. Oh goodness. And then a clean up app, and then I put the glass in the right bucket app. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. But I mean, there's an app for that. People might I mean, sometimes people and we would just try drop bottles away all the time. Don't make try not to make habit of it, but that's gonna happen at some stage, isn't it? I don't know. Yeah. I guess we could, someone could get Like a sound sensor, the sound of sounded breaking glass. So, you know, this is kind of early stages, but not early stages. What's the next what's the next step? The next step is the web. So that's a big thing for twenty twenty. Alright. We have five g coming, which is going to have a a huge explosion in AR because we're going to be able to get and have access to the web. Augmented reality. Okay. So why is that why biggest connection speeds would be quicker? Yes. We're just talking about the states or all over the world? All over the world. Really? Yeah. Absolutely. And so by having a web application, we we don't have to download so many apps. We don't have to have twenty apps on our phone. I can put a QR code on any label out there. It goes directly to the web server, and it plays the experience. You don't have to download a thing. Okay. So that does help people, doesn't it clogging up their phones with apps that they may only using frequently that's using up some of their memory and and all the rest of it? Exactly. Okay. So we missed anything. I I don't think so. There's honestly I'm not a technical guy, but I just ask random questions. There there's so much to cover. Okay. And the potential is limitless. We can do anything. And we I've discussed a lot of marker based AR today. Which is directly on products. Marker based. Just give us that one more time. Marker based is where your activation from the experience on your phone, you have to have a product to activate it. And so that the business strategy for a lot of people, but there's also marker lists, which means that you don't have to have a product. You can have a a three d image, in the room with you. Right? At home. Yes. Anywhere, anywhere at all. But what we're what we can also do so that brands can have engagement with their products is we can have someone scan a bottle with the marker experience, and then they can unlock a marker less experience. So we can have both. You're gonna have to repeat that. I didn't get that. I'm a blow. I can't do two things at once. You're explaining two things at once. It's too much for me. So a user can go. A user hang on. Just the we're back in the supermarket. Yes, we are. Alright. Go on. Walk into the supermarket with this new toy. Right. Go on. And you go and you wanna have this experience, and you want to to earn a marker less experience. Earn a marker less experience. That's right. Experience. That's right. So this is where we're going in the future. Hey, Markulus means. We're going, in object that's not connected to a product. Okay. So in the future, we're going to have virtual objects. In the future, we're going to be able to purchase virtual objects and earn them. Because we saw earlier in in Bogle wines, the user can earn a key to unlock certain things. So we're going to earn these these objects. So we go to the supermarket, and we're going to scan the product. We might have a marker experience. So the the product's on the shelf and you scan it That's right. With your phone. Yep. And then I earn something. So I can earn a marker less experience, which means that I don't have to have an experience working on the product. But I've also earned a marker less object so that in the future, if I wanted to have, maybe a puzzle that wasn't based on the product, but maybe I could place it on my wall. Then later on, I can I can go and do that and show my friends because I went and I had a market experience? You know, these are all tools. These are different tools that we can earn in the future. Why would your friends care though? I mean, like, you know, my friends come around. I don't want to play with my dog. And, I don't know, have a glass of wine in the garden. Mhmm. Of course. Why would they come around and say, hey, come around from Marco's experience. We're like, what you what language are you talking? This is a good question. And so this comes this comes over to the big question is why? What's the point of this? Why do why are we doing this? You know, why are people interested in in looking at this content? Well, you can ask the same question about art. What what is the purpose? Of looking at art. What is the purpose of going and watching a movie? It's entertaining. And now we can do this around wine, or we can play a game without the wine. I I think mostly users right now are interested and having a product that has a game or an experience associated with it, but we can bring our friends into this. We can all engage together around this bottle of wine, and we can have a conversation, something fun, and drink the wine. But physically? Yes. Yes. You know, this is a whole new social topic, and people are very much into sharing right now. So social media, camera filters, and all of that. You know, we want to be able to share our lives to our friends digitally. So we can do that now when we are enjoying a glass of wine. So I'm drinking this, and I'm letting all my mates know. That's right. That's right. I mean, in the old days, you just sit around a table with a few glasses and do that face to face wouldn't you? Yes. But you don't have to share as well. You can also have this experience by yourself because some of these things are very in informational. Like, Jack Daniels, that's a whole ten minute documentary right on your bottle. That's all interactive, and it teaches you about the distillery and the history. It's fun. So it's gonna buy what you did. Basically, you're getting all that information without having to log on to their website, for example, and and find the right page, which you never can. You're saying it's it's they're just gonna they've done this audio video interactive, whatever you wanna call it, thing that you can watch really as you're sipping the the product. That's right. That is right. And it's it's just honestly, it's a very fun way to be connected to your product. And that's why people are starting to hold on to their products. They're starting to have empathy with the bottles themselves. You know, people don't want to throw away. People have always done that, though. They've always kept bottles. Oh, people are doing it more now. That's the thing. You know, even with me. Like, I don't wanna throw away my nineteen crimes bottle because I am connected to this character who speaks to me about his journey. And and this is a whole new level of psychology. Even though he's not real. Oh, he was. Yeah. Okay. But I mean, he's not actually physically in the room. I know what you mean. Right. Well, I mean, I can keep a portrait of someone in my room. Yeah. And I'm very connected to it. Because it symbolizes someone who maybe I cared for, maybe, just a person in history that I had admired. And now I can have that on my bottle too. Okay. Let's rewrap it up. I just let you know we've been filming the whole of this, and, I'm gonna stick it on, my No. My toothbrush. Oh, no. I'm joking, of course. Oh, that's great. Yeah. I mean, I I usually probably worked out. I'm in terms of, the aspect of, computer life. I'm not the sharpest tool in the box. So I hope I didn't ask too many dumb questions, but, I can think I've kinda got it. Good. I mean, that's the thing. Is that this can be technical? And I I can Should it come in with like a QR code on your blouse and and I could I can do that. Yeah. I we can do that. No. No. We'll we'll we'll already do it there. But it's easy. You know, just pick up the bottle, turn on your camera. That's all there is. Make it sound so simple. So I'll say thanks. Thanks to my guest today. Hannah looks and begged tornow. Does I say that again for difficult, from tactic Yes. Augmented reality and storytelling. Well, this was all audio, very old technology. Apologies for that. I hope it all comes out well after the edit, because it will need an edit with one of my flubs and blubs, and and just basic general thickness about all things technological. But I we've got some of the key points over, and you, the audience have understood it better than me, because I admit I'm still struggling. I I need to get my phone out and a QR code and go head down to my local Italian supermarket. Yeah. Would you recommend that? You know it's still in Italy, yeah, again. But it's gonna be global, isn't it? Exactly. I mean, you can go to any bar and activate this as well. Okay. Alright. I'll probably have a coffee, but you maybe I'd probably need something stronger than that after the interview, anyway. Thanks very much, Anna coming in to Nix about that. And, we'll get you back at some stage, and I'll put you through the torture again. And, it was a bad student. Thank you so much. I'm a black. It takes three times. You gotta hit me hard on the head. And I'll get that. I'll get that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Take it easy. And I wish you every success as well. Thank you. And that concludes the interview for this episode of the Italian wine podcast. But before we sign off, we'll go to our new segment. Everyone needs a bit of Shienza. This is where members of the Vine Italy International Academy send their questions to via chief scientist Atilio Shienza. Happy studies. Okay. Welcome to everybody needs a bit of Shinsa. I'm here with Professor Atilio Shinsa. First of all, who do we have to thank. This is going to be hilarious because, you know, we're actually going to do this recording in Italian, and then it's going to be back translated into English from my, terrible Italian. So Okay. So I'm Stev Kim. I'm the managing director of finito International. And we are here with the Italian wine podcast team. By the way, Chow Judy, yeah, we haven't gotten rid of your jingle yet. I'm here with, Julia's replacement, and his name is Jacob. So hello, everybody. From now onward, it's Jacob, the one man show here. And, we call him the military man, and we'll explain a little bit later about that later. And Let's go with the first question from Julian Gordon Smith. Fall from Grace. She's, but I gotta do this in Italian. Child, Julian Gordon Smith, the australia, let proprietary the fall from grace and Prudutrica, ma, E Anke, Unestro, Italian wine expert. Uh-huh. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. The material, Cagriso, bruni, crystal color, typically, they they freeze. I I I Aliente, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, there's influence on that. A a a supplement. Okay. Ill, Flishman. Professor, Artilio Shenza. Alaprosima. Listen to all of our pods on Sound Cloud iTunes, iTunesify HimalayaFM, and on Italian Mind Podcast dot com. Don't forget to send your tweets to eta wine podcast.