Under Dept, Byte’s branding and management team will continue as before, with Co-founders Alex Miller and Jamie Kenny working closely with Dept’s Board of Directors. Byte brings with at a 150-person strong team across offices in London, New York, and Berlin, and a client roster boasting the likes of Spotify, Asos, Just Eat Takeaway, TikTok, Twitch, and Zoopla, among others.

“Alex, Jamie and the team have established a high reputation for innovative advertising campaigns, pioneering AR effects and advanced chatbots,” said Dimi Albers, Dept CEO. “Their ability to grow fast while operating at the intersection of creativity, technology and data makes this a perfect mix, and we can’t wait to start working together on some of the best brands in the world.”

Dept, backed by investment firm The Carlyle Group, works out of 27 global office to help brands to grow and accelerate their digital business. Its clients include Adidas, Microsoft, AstraZeneca, Unilever, Samsung, TomTom, O2, KLM, NHS, PlayStation, Philips, and more.

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The ‘Cocktail Creator’ AR game, developed in partnership with martech agency Byte, offers up personalised cocktail suggestions based on actions within the experience.

Diners scan the QR code of the back of the Christmas menu card to access the experience and then use their head to control the on-screen shaker, which is used to capture the flavours the guest wants in their cocktail. Once the flavours have been collected, the user shakes their head to mix the cocktail and, based on their profile, a cocktail is revealed in AR form which can then be ordered for real.

“We’ll be serving large helpings of much needed Fridays feeling at all of our open restaurants throughout December,” said Dan Staples, Chief Marketing Officer at TGI Fridays. “This AR game will add more festive fun to the proceedings and help our guests experience fantastic flavours and our famous cocktail making heritage.”

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The ‘Key Metrics’ campaign, created alongside marketing agency Byte, combines more than 327,000 data points to deliver hyper-local, personalised videos to homemovers on Facebook and Instagram. Data includes Zoopla’s property market insights, Ofsted school ratings data, and information from FourSquare identifying local points of interest.

“The more localised, personalised and relevant we can make our content, the more it helps our audiences during their property search,” said Harry Foges, Head of Content at Zoopla. “We’re really excited to launch Key Metrics, marrying our market-leading house price data with Byte’s technical expertise to give people the insight they need on the journey to their next home.”

The automated system – developed by Byte specifically for Zoopla – matches data points to audience priorities, which are determined by Facebook data combined with Zoopla search data.

“We’re incredibly excited to launch this first-to-market dynamic approach with Zoopla,” said Alex Miller, Byte Co-founder. “By intelligently creating personalised videos that appeal to each home seeker’s preferences, and delivering timely useful insights, this project is an example of how innovation can drive campaigns that simultaneously serve marketing imperatives alongside audience need.”

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The ‘#AySauce’ campaign, created in collaboration with Byte London, features a dedicated branded hashtag challenge, in-feed ads, a bespoke music track, and an interactive augmented reality (AR) experience with TikTok’s branded effects. Talent involved in the campaign includes Holly H, Luke Trotman from Love Island, the Neffati Brothers, Loren Gray, Micheal Le, and Jordan Fisher.

“We’re always evolving our content, social media strategy and channel focus to ensure we’re staying relevant to our fashion-loving 20-something customers,” said John Mooney, Brand Creative Director at ASOS. “TikTok is a growing part of that mix, and we’re excited to see how our social content team can engage our customers in new ways through the #AySauce hashtag challenge over the coming weeks.”

Starting today, all TikTok users in the UK will be greeted by ASOS content when opening the app. Then, from 31 August, the #AySauce challenge will ask target audiences to showcase three outfits of their choice in 15 seconds. Those participating in the challenge will be able to explore more ASOS content via an extra ‘Explore’ tab on the challenge page.

In-feed ads will run throughout the campaign to reach users in their personalised ‘For You’ feeds. And ASOS has commissioned and produced its own track with KARM and co-created a branded effect AR experience with Byte.

In the US, ASOS will run in-feed ads from 31 August until 14 September alongside creator content.

“TikTok’s format and joyful tone encourages brands to be authentic and creative in a fully immersive, no judgement world,” said Inam Mahmood, Managing Director of Global Business Solutions UK at TikTok. “The team at ASOS has really leaned into this and shown with its campaign that it understands what makes the platform unique – community, music and creativity. We’re excited to see the results we can help to deliver for ASOS across the UK and US.”

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The Instagram experience is part of a campaign to get Last Christmas – the biggest selling song never to reach number one in the UK – to the UK Christmas number one spot. It gives users the chance to don George Michael’s 80s hairdo and earring, along with the Santa hat he wore on the cover of the record.

“We spend a lot of time helping our listeners discover things they didn’t know they’d love. But this time we wanted to create a reason for fans to reconnect with one of the greatest Christmas songs ever – which incredibly never made it to Christmas number one,” said Annika Walsh, UK/IE artist & label marketing lead at Spotify. “Maybe this effect might go some way to setting that record straight and, even if not, we know that people will have fun using it to celebrate this undeniable Wham! classic all the same.”

The campaign has been launched to coincide with the release of the song-inspired film that shares its name, starring the likes of Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Emma Thompson, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Serafinowicz, and Rob Delaney.

“Were always looking for new ways to bring George Michaels music to a younger generation on Spotify and the 35th anniversary of Last Christmas was the perfect opportunity to do so,” said Heidi Boston-Thompson, senior digital marketing manager at Sony Music Entertainment. “This Instagram AR filter allows the audience to have fun with the song in a unique way, giving existing core fans the chance to share their love, whilst opening up a new immersive discovery path to George and Wham! for potential new fans.”

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The Facebook Messenger chatbot complements the AI: More than Human exhibition, which kicked off today (16 May) and will run until 26 August as part of the Barbican’s ‘Life Rewired’ season.

“Marketing an AI exhibition, we felt we simply had to incorporate an element of AI into the campaign in some way. Byte stood out due to the team’s enthusiasm for the project and the exhibition, and their expertise producing creative, personality-driven chatbots,” David Lally, marketing manager for international enterprises at the Barbican, told Mobile Marketing.

Rachel Williams, Barbican content manager, added: “AI is often discussed in an academic way, we wanted our chatbot to present the ‘human’ side of AI by provoking and challenging expectations about it in unexpected ways. We hope visitors will enjoy learning about AI in this new way and that it will offer an ideal extension of the exhibition for those unable to attend – or who want to keep on discovering after their visit.”

Appearing on both the Barbican’s website and Facebook page, the chatbot has been designed to stimulate conversations around the role of AI in society. It focuses conversation around four themes from the exhibition, including ‘Why are you afraid of AI?’, ‘Does data discriminate?’, ‘Who’s driving the car?’, and ‘What makes us human?’.

“We are extremely excited to see the launch of our chatbot to support this provocative and inspiring exhibition tackling questions at the forefront of our relationship with AI,” said Jamie Kenny, Byte co-founder.

The AI: More than Human exhibition explores how the ongoing development of artificial intelligence changing our lives and what it means to be human. The exhibition hosts research projects by DeepMind, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Neri Oxman, as well as exhibits and installations from Mario Klingemann, Massive Attack, Es Devlin, and teamLab.

*This article has been updated to include David Lally and Rachel Williams comments.

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Hofmann has revealed relatively few details of what Byte will do or how it will differ from Vine, which enabled users to record and share looping videos that were six seconds long. In November 2017, he revealed that he was working on a ‘follow-up’ to the app, but then a few months later said development had been delayed due to funding and legal concerns. He has confirmed that Byte will be a “video looping app”, and those interested in learning more information about it as it becomes available can sign up on Byte’s website, which went live shortly after the announcement.

Vine developed a strong following during its existence, and served as a launchpad for many influencers, comedians and musicians, most of whom moved over to YouTube when the platform ceased operating. Despite its popularity, Twitter was unable to successfully monetise Vine, which was the main reason behind the platform being shut down.

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