After getting a tad frustrated with life as a junior in advertising, a few mates and I had a harebrained idea to create an ‘internet of things’ startup called Tactify. We started by somehow selling NFC business cards to Sony, which then led to Sharetapes.
Sharetapes brought the classic mixtape we used to make back to life. Using cards with embedded NFC and printed scan codes, people could link their favourite playlists from any platform (Spotify, Pandora, Soundcloud, etc) to a Sharetape.
This was like 2013, so not many people were really using NFC in creative ways, let alone thinking about the ‘internet of things’, so creating something innovative that people could easily wrap their head around went nuts. We took Sharetapes to SXSW, and won Mashable’s Startup Pitch competition.
From SXSW, we got a crazy amount of press from USA Today, WIRED, Uncrate, Gizmodo, Business Insider and PSFK to namedrop a few, and the orders subsequently came in hot which was an outrageous experience for a couple of fellas in their early twenties.
Since our launch, we’ve sold over 1 million packs globally and have partnered with some amazing brands along the way like Warner Brothers, Pandora, Spotify, Universal and Samsung to name drop even more.
We promoted AMC’s new horror streaming service “Shudder” using Sharetapes and Shazam’s Augmented Reality functionality. Users saw a talking ventriloquist dummy appear on top of the Sharetape on their phone’s screen. Folks could even take a selfie with it to share which is something.
We helped emerging artist M.Maggieto promote her debut album. Her Sharetape also featured exclusive show footage and automatically updated so fans could keep up to date with new releases, turning it into an ever evolving record of sorts.
We created custom tapes for Hot97’s Summer Jam. Festivalgoers were given Sharetapes throughout the day that linked them to embedded exclusive videos and an Apple Music Playlist, were updated regularly after the festival with new content.
Bud Light promoted their SXSW 17 showcase with Sharetapes. Visitors used them to RSVP to the show and listen to a playlist curated by the Roots.
For the NYC Marathon, New Balance created 23 unique playlists, one for each of their athletes competing along with their profiles and handed them out on… you guessed it, Sharetapes.
On the back of Sharetapes, we pitched and received a very generous amount of investment from a venture capitalist which was truly a ridiculously amazing experience. That allowed us create Tactify, an internet of things production and product company. In the next couple of years, we became one of the world’s leading NFC and Beacon companies (seriously, we spoke on panels and everything).
In 2015 we worked with JWT to create a campaign for the Melbourne Writers Festival called Twist and Turns, a beacon based live choose your own adventure that played out across the city. Amazing experience to be on the production side for a change and it turned out to be rather successful which was really gratifying for all the work we put in.