UK digital marketing pioneer Peter Riley has quit his role as head of creative for Facebook Asia Pacific to co-found a new technology and innovation company, Glorious Labs.
The start-up, which already has offices in Hong Kong, London and San Francisco, describes itself as a business “designed for the connected world, which will build devices at the intersection of digital, mobile, virtual reality and the Internet of Things”.
Riley, who is co-founder and chief executive of the start-up, is joined in the venture by Josh Thomas, who has worked as a creative technologist at Isobar, Leo Burnett and Ogilvy & Mather.
The duo met when Riley was executive creative director at OgilvyOne Worldwide in Hong Kong and Thomas was running creative for O&M Hong Kong’s R&D department.
The business was set up in August last year but Riley has only just been able to announce his involvement due to contractual issues.
Glorious Labs’ first product is Gloria, a 360° camera launching later this year. Described as “the world’s most versatile virtual reality capture device”, it enables 360° photos and videos to be stitched together and be viewed live “to give a real life, immersive experience that puts you at the heart of the action”.
According to the blurb, “Gloria is a totally immersive experience. She is equally at home transporting you to the nightclubs of Vegas, London, and Tokyo as she is transporting doctors and rescue workers to the frontline of disaster zones”.
Glorious Labs has already signed a deal with the United Nations Development Programme – which fuelled Riley’s appointment to sit on the advisory board for the UN Innovation Facility – to collaborate on technologies and innovations that can offer a new generation of development solutions in Asia and the Pacific.
Riley said: “Glorious Labs will bring the smartest thinking and ideas together to make massive impact and improve the lives of millions of people across Asia Pacific.”
He has been based in the region since June 2012, starting at OgilvyOne Hong Kong. After six months Riley was promoted to regional ECD, responsible for creative leadership of 16 offices in 13 countries across O&M but quit to join Facebook 18 months ago.
Riley is best known in the UK as the one of the pioneers of the digital agency market at 20:20 London, which he co-founded in 2003. It was one of the first digital agencies to unite technology with direct marketing techniques and won numerous industry awards for its viral personalisation campaigns.
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