Case Studies on Best Practice in
External Marketing Communication
Cases on
Horus Technology
Il Birrino
Memeoirs
Fluentify
Written in May 2015 by the Italian team of the University of Trento:
Michele Bassetto, Eufemio Ferrante, Carmen Iaderosa,
Enrico Libralato, Luca Manisera, Chiara Tilola.
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Horus Technology Ltd.
Domestic market focus and on the market since 1 to 2 years
1) Introduction of Horus Technology
Horus, in the Egyptian culture is a divinity. The eagle divinity.
“There are millions of blind and visually impaired people in the world. What can we do to
improve their lives? Introducing Horus, a wearable personal assistant”.
Horus Technology is offering a product, a wearable device that helps blind and low vision
people to regain their independence.
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Horus Technology is a company launched in 2014 in Genoa, a city located at the seaside in
the North of Italy, by two students, Saverio Murgia (CEO) and Luca Nardelli (CTO).
Saverio and Luca had this idea while walking in Genoa, when they were asked by a lost blind
person where the crosswalk was. If this information was easily given by a person, it could also
have been given by a wearable device able to see everything surrounding the holder of the
device, providing detailed vocal instructions by means of a headphone.
This is why, the representative slogan of Horus Technology is: “The invisible made audible”.
The Horus Technology’s team is now composed of eight members: Saverio Murgia (CEO),
Luca Nardelli (CTO), Benedetta Magri (CMO), Alessandro Caldini and Simone Vuotto
(Software Developer), Martina Cavalieri (Brand Designer).
The story of Horus Technology began with the participation of the founders to the Silicon
Valley Study Tour, which gave them the input to participate in the Startup Day - Vol II
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organized in Genoa with the support of Talent Garden. That first success marked the
beginning of a journey aimed at achieving the goal of developing Horus. In May, Horus
Technology received the first grant from EIT ICT Labs, a European network that has
provided many opportunities to stay in touch with technological excellences. Then Horus
was accelerated by Working Capital and it won a competition at IDIAP, a research
laboratory in Switzerland. Finally, Horus entered the network of Edison Start and from the
beginning of 2015 they are working at the accelerator chip that is part of the “European
project Fiware”.
Horus Technology is not producing only a software, but it is also producing hardware device.
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Horus is an arch-shaped device, compatible with any pair of glasses. Horus observes reality,
understands and describes it to the person providing information at the appropriate time: it
can recognize faces, objects, reading texts, the presence of obstacles or road signs, and also
crosswalks.
The device consists of two parts, the first, containing the visual sensors and guidance and the
second, which includes the battery and the central processing unit to be kept with you in
your pocket or purse. The user interaction with Horus is via buttons or via vocal interaction.
A headphone provides the detailed description of what the camera is pointing at. Leveraging
the human’s bone structure, the person’s ability to hear is neither limited nor distorted, and
you can hear the device even in noisy environments.
2) What makes Horus Technology an entrepreneurial company? How innovative are
they?
Horus Technology enters the market of the wearable device. In its specific function Horus aims
at becoming an indispensable device for blind and low vision people to regain their
independence. Smart wearable in the technology industry for 2015 will become a big and
profitable market. The technology that these new devices are employing is innovative.
Smart technology is certainly something that will be the key to the optimal operation of our
future society, especially when it comes to healthcare. The core of innovation is the use of a
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state-of-the art technology, which produces an innovative product. Indeed, the product
utilises up-to-date software and hardware in order to offer a high standard service for the
user. In particular, the software is made by the team headed by the CTO Luca Nardelli. This
software can recognise faces, zebra crossing, and other important images. In addition, the
software can self-learn from the owner, by saving and recognising the most frequent faces.
The information that the device provides are kept secret in order to maintain personal
information safe. In other words, this product offers a mix of technology and design which
helps handicapped people to enjoy everyday life.
In 2015 what is relevant is how this technology could likely be used on a greater scale to help
those who truly need it the most: people with chronic medical illnesses. The actual tendency
of existing companies’ technology in wearable is to provide wearable to tech aficionados and
athletes who marvel at tracking personal health data — but not ultimately benefit society at
large. Conversely, Horus Technology aims at providing to million people an irreplaceable tool
for the daily life. Horus does not require to be connected to the Internet in order to perform.
All the functions of the device do not rely on smart phones or other devices. The innovation
lies mainly in the ability to add functionality and then in allowing the user to customize the
information stored by the device such as objects that the user uses most frequently and the
faces of the customer’s dearest people. It is basically used to make the interaction with the
surrounding world as natural as possible. Horus Technology is keen in introducing
technologies in the everyday use.
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The main innovation feature of Horus is the application and development of new
technologies in computer vision and machine learning that provide a wide range of personal
support. The device offers more than help and is rather a real personal assistant. The
innovation is the ability to create a device for blind people that are completely built with
them. In fact each aspect of Horus is designed (or is planned) based on the comments that
Horus Technology get from people who would really be interested in using the device. In this
way Horus Technology can create a device that can truly meet the needs of the people,
restoring their independence.
The customer relationship is vital: Horus Technology receives messages from people interested
in trying Horus every day and contributes to the development of the device. The reaction of
the people who is testing Horus is immediate and tangible: blind people start smiling and
keep on listening to the voice of Horus in the headphone. Users are always providing the
feedbacks on the capabilities they believe are more important for them.
Another innovative feature is the use of the crowd-funding as one of the main mean used to
avoid the budget constraints represented by the huge investments that the hardware requires.
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Horus is not only offering software, but a tangible product ready to be used. The objective
was to raise the necessary funds to provide prototypes to the “Italian Union of the Blind and
Visually Impaired”, which will help Horus Technology to identify people who can perform the
necessary tests. Horus’ commitment via the crowd-funding campaign is to create a common
path with the user who will participate in the development of the product, following the
implementation step by step in every customer’s need and discussing with the users for the
possible improvements.
Up to now, the main source of financing derives from “TIM #WCAP Crowd-funding” thanks
to which the project has been pledged and supported with € 30.750 out of the € 20.000
required for the implementation of the device. The TIM #WCAP Crowdfunding is the
Telecom Italia Reward Based Crowd-funding platform that supports innovative projects
turning great digital ideas into real projects with the support of the community.
3) What makes Horus Technology an example of best practice with regards to external
marketing communication? – How are these practices implemented
The relationship of Horus Technology with the association, such as Ageranv,
Talking newspaper Bridlington, Uici sezione di Chiavari and RP Liguria that are strictly
connected with the final customer of the product offered by Hours is the main driver of the
development of the company and of its best practices.
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The main national associations strongly support the product of Horus and are also one of the
main source of information and feedback for Horus Technology. Since the cluster of clients
can be considered a niche and since the final product is very specific and technically high
technological, the continuous relationship with the Italian national association is
fundamental. Horus Technology gathers information from them and through a continuous
feedback loop, it improves the quality of the product offered. The national associations are
one of the mean used by Horus Technology for entering the market: offering the product
directly to the national blind and low vision association is helping the company to both sell
the product and receive fundamental advices in how to improve a product that cannot be
easily tested by a person that is not affected by any disease.
Horus Technology is continuously passing through several steps, the so called “continuous
feedback loop effect”. The company is identifying, assessing, monitoring and controlling its
activities thanks to a tight relation with the users, using the outcome data as a reference for
learning and adapting to the customer needs, always evaluating its effectiveness.
Moreover, the strategy of the company of being with the customer is helping it in creating a
chain of contacts across the country that turns out to be a crucial mean that can be defined
in some way as “the word of mouth”. We will see in the next part of the new communication
features, how the presence in television and on the national media has been fundamental for
the diffusion of the product across the users. Luca Nardelli, the CTO of the company clearly
said that they had loads of difficulties in approaching the niche market they were trying to
penetrate, because the community of the blind people (for obvious reasons) do not have a
strong presence online. For this reason the majority of the communication and advertising in
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the very initial stage of the life of Horus Technology have been made offline, participating at
events and conferences dedicated to the specific cluster of customer that had also the
concrete possibility of trying the product. The video report attached to this case study analysis
clearly explains the reaction and the appreciation of the blind and low vision people to this
innovative product.
The following step included an online marketing campaign thanks to which the company
have gained, and is currently gaining, a social acceptance. This is visible also from the
response received from famous singer, actors and national VIPs that have suddenly joined a
viral online campaign of advertisement that has been really important for the national
recognition of the product offered by the company.
4) How is Horus Technology utilizing the new communications features?
Horus Technology uses actively five different social networks in order to promote its
product. These social networks are Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn. In
the social media Twitter, the company launched the hashtag “#OneViewForTheBlind”. The
central aim of the campaign is to support the crowd-funding process. The messages
associated with the hashtag explain how blindness and visually impaired can affect the
normal life. The social awareness message is the key of the campaign. In fact, it is designed to
reach a large audience and not only the final consumers. According to the company website,
this hashtag was aided by Italian VIP’s, among which television stars and international
athletes supported Horus Technology and its product. Thanks to this visibility, the project
of Horus spread through the social media. Moreover, this campaign was substantially
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without costs. We think the use of the hashtag was well-developed, especially for a company
such as Horus, which cannot utilize the classic media e.g. television or newspaper for budget
reasons. A step forward for the company was the participation in the TV show “Le Iene”
which is viewed on national TV channel. The televised report created a word-of-mouth
phenomena, which helped the company to create new contacts. In addition, the television
report was reported in the national newspapers. It meant free advertising for Horus
Technology, by utilising earned medias.
However, the top contributor in this social network is not the company. This means that
Horus may have difficulties in controlling the diffusion of the message. In fact, the hashtag
“#OneViewForTheBlind” is not focused on the company. We have utilised tweetreach in
order to track the twitter page of this company. The data confirms that the company is not
the main contributor.
Data from Tweetreach.com
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Another social network widely used by Horus Technology is Youtube. Horus produced a
short video with Italian and International blindfold VIPs. The final message of the video
invites to share the video clip on the personal social media page. Thanks to the briefness of
the video, and the presence of well-known people, the purpose of the video is to go virally
through the social media. We think this is a good practice in order to reach a lot of people.
On the other and, this use of YouTube has substantially the same problems stated above
with Twitter.
Facebook is used as showcase for all the news that involves Horus Technology. The
company’s page has 1438 followers. Horus posts a wide range of information for their
followers. Indeed, on the company’s Facebook profile there are information about a the
crowd-funding campaign, wishes for the festivity or the link to the video on YouTube. As for
the other social media, the company is trying to involve the financier in the project.
As stated above, Horus Technology uses LinkedIn as a professional social network, where you
can find the curriculum of the founders Saverio Murgia (CEO) and Luca Nardelli (CTO)
and all the others employees.
Finally, we can say that Horus Technology is trying to develop a promotional campaign in
order to finance the project. The company is still small, therefore the final aim in the use of
the social media is still not clear. The company mixes social awareness messages with
business, which can be an innovative and fast way to promote the product.
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5) International issues (if relevant)
At the moment Horus Technology has a complete focus on the domestic market. During the
product development the company received a lot of feedback and help from national blind
associations, which had influence in improving the technology. Basically thought for all
blind and visually impaired people, they actually aim at selling in the national market first,
and then expand abroad.