Clever Campaign Lets You Remotely Control A Cafe Via App

Now this is a clever and fun remote control campaign – a café where you get to remotely control its contents, and watch the customers’ reactions in real time! The café is called Kauku, and moves around a number of different locations in Helsinki, Finland, as part of World Design Helsinki 2012. The Kauku site’s tagline is ‘Remotely Control Design in Real Time’, and the café is filled with cameras, allowing you to see the real time reactions of customers’ whose experience is being controlled. The café is composed of bad design features, which aim to illustrate how important a role design plays in our daily lives.

When you visit the Kauku site, you are told which pieces of furniture are occupied, as well as music, lights and messages. If something is available to control, for example a chair that a customer is sitting on, you can play around with the height of the chairs and see how the customers react in real time; the purpose is to see “what works well and what doesn’t?”. You can see the customer’s reaction to the movements you make via video, which is extremely clever.

This use of remote control technology in a campaign is a brilliant example of how you can utilise technology to create something that people will engage with, talk about and enjoy, as well as getting your message across!