HeyHuman will explain what the digital messaging is doing to human minds, at #ICEEfest

HeyHuman, a creative activation agency that focuses on human behavior in order to transform brand experiences, will unveil, at ICEEfest, what the deluge of digital messaging might be doing to people’s heads and what that means for attention span, cognition and brand recall.

According to the agency, the “neuroplasticity” (the process through which every new stimulus physically rewires the pathways in human brains) was heavily influenced by the seismic shifts of the web, social media and mobile. In addition, the level of messaging those channels introduced in our work and social lives arose multiple questions on implications for people, brands and marketing communications.

HeyHuman comes to ICEEfest in Bucharest to share its knowledge on this subject previous to going to Cannes Lions Innovation, where they will present “The Battle for Attention Live: Digital Revolution vs. Human Evolution”. While bringing to life the neuroscience concept of “cognitive load” and the challenges it poses for creativity, the focus will be on how tech impacts attention, emotional engagement and brand recall, what are the opportunities to communicate via other, open channels into people’s brains and which is the right strategy for brands to use creativity to cut through and go forward.

Speaking in Bucharest will be Dan Machen, Innovation Director HeyHuman, and Felix Morgan, Innovator.

Dan joined Hey Human – a London creative agency – in 2007 as a Senior Planner and now drives their strategic vision as Director of Innovation. During his 18 year career, Dan has had varied roles across agencies and started as an Account Man on Pepsi for Omnicom agencies before becoming a Creative and Creative Head. He pioneered several firsts including EMEA satellite and mobile tracking campaigns for Budweiser and KitKat, the first ever furniture concept for Moet & Chandon champagne and ground-breaking AR for Glaxo Smithkline on Lucozade Energy bottles. He picked up accolades for Unilever, Eurostar and Glaxo Smithkline and is a speaker and thought leader on the evolving relationship between technology and humanity. At HeyHuman, his mission is to “humanise technology to empower positive human behaviours”.

Felix works in strategic innovation and has over 4 years of experience in advising blue chip clients (Sony, Unilever, Mars, Mondelez, etc) on the relationship between people’s behaviors and technology, and the role brands can play to influence it.

HeyHuman’s Innovation team explored what marketing needs to ask neuroscience, namely if technology allows people to multi-task better or divides the attention, if it makes people more nimble-minded or undermine their ability to remember on long-term .

The agency worked with neuroscience partners to find out what happens in people’s brains while “multi-tasking”, using simultaneously a TV, a laptop and a mobile device. Based on neuro and biometric feedback, the agency found out that people who think they are multi-tasking are actually “task-switching”, an action dividing their attention and that comes with cognitive costs for every switch.

HeyHuman’s research suggested that people’s conscious cognition is overloaded with information, reason why brands – who consider digital media an opportunity to enrich brand experience – must land a helping hand by making messaging easy to process.

A creative activation agency, “which obsesses about human behavior in order to transform brand experiences”, HeyHuman  is unraveling and reimagining how people experience brands (through brand, content, experiential, social and shopper) in order to build more human brand experiences. The agency uses tools and techniques involving social communities, task-based research and neuroscience to find new ways to connect people and brands in perfect partnership.

Agency works for many clients, among which 5 Gum, Airwaves, Belvita, Dove, Galaxy, Guinness, Hula Hoops,  Lucozade Energy, Lucozade Sport, McCoy’s, Montano Cider, Morrisons,  PG tips, Pot Noodle, Radox, Ribena, Ritz, Sennheiser, Sony Mobile, Surf and Tassimo. 

ICEEfest – Interactive Central and Eastern Europe Festival – attracts thousands of marketers, agency people & online media enthusiasts from all over Europe since 2008. The CE Europe’s premium Digital Marketing event takes place in Bucharest, the capital of Romania.

This year’s ICEEfest will include, besides inspirational presentations and applied workshops, 2 distinct satellite-events, namely Viral Music Night on June 11th and Viral Movie Night on 12th. Also, “200 Seconds of Fame” start-up competition will continue during this year’s festival. In the same time, in the context of the festival, there will take place the Romanian edition of IAB MIXX awards. The MC of the festival will be the British actor and comedian Jeff Leach.

ICEEfest is organized by Think Digital Group with support from IAB Europe and tickets are available on event’s official website, www.ICEEfest.com.