Bolha is a Brazil-based creative marketing technology studio that supports clients from a wide range of industries including automotive, health and beauty, food and beverage and retail and education, among others.

What makes Bolha’s approach to marketing for its clients unique is that the firm uses Autodesk Fusion 360 software to design and integrate interactive physical and digital elements into the projects it develops. This creates a more meaningful and emotional experience for consumers who are interacting with their clients’ products.

For example, for one of the company’s automobile manufacturer clients, Bolha developed an experience that allowed participants to use the power of thought—through neural sensors—to control slot cars in a model racetrack. The experience allowed users to feel like they were magically moving the cars through neural interaction—a very rare experience.

For its creative approach to marketing and developing innovative brand experiences, Bolha is being recognized as the Autodesk Inventing the Future recipient for January.

Autodesk seeks Inventing the Future candidates each month from its Manufacturing customer base through a brief Q&A interview on a company or individual addressing their business, products and inventive spirit. Here is what Bolha owner Nagib Nassif Filho had to say about creating product experiences leveraging Autodesk software:

Autodesk: What does your company develop, and why is it important for the world?

Nassif: Bolha is a creative technology and marketing studio that develops projects integrating physical and digital, mixing hardware, software and web, through research processes, prototyping and production. Our projects promote real experiences and help consumers connect with brands in a more meaningful and emotional way.

Relevance is what matters for us, like when our creations are useful, fun, and, above all, meaningful to the markets to which they are intended. As we work today in advertising and marketing, we are building solutions for several industries: automotive, health and beauty, food and beverage, retail, education and more.

We have helped a Brazilian rowing team improve their evaluation of training performance by designing and printing a piece that can be attached to the boat to measure their performance.

In another project, we connected students at a language course in Brazil with people in other countries, generating real opportunities for communication. When a U.S. customer called to order a pizza at a local restaurant, these students assisted him, and the greater the talk time was, the more discounts the customer won.

We have also created an experience that allowed participants to use the power of thought, through neural sensors, to control slot cars in a model racetrack. It felt like magic to users of this neural interaction, it was something so rare and powerful for them! And, most importantly, this experience and contact with the auto manufacturer’s brand were featured throughout.

Finally, for another automobile manufacturer, we helped create a huge campaign to introduce a new technology to Brazil's market, giving full support to the digital communication along with producing a physical installation that users could interact with.

Autodesk: How has adopting technology helped your company evolve?

Nassif: Technology is the heart of our business. We research new technologies and applications all the time, including new materials, prototyping platforms and software, among others.

By understanding these new and current technologies, we can form a repertoire of solutions and ideas to meet market needs and client desires, or we can create new products. The increasingly easy access we have to prototyping platforms—including components, sensors, Arduinos and Raspberry Pi, for example—along with the continuing popularity of 3D printers, brings great ease to the production of designs and prototypes. This enables us to test the ideas for our customers with much more efficiency and agility.

Autodesk: What Autodesk software do you use and why?

Nassif: We started with the most basic platforms such as Autodesk 123D Design and evolved to Autodesk Fusion 360. We use Fusion 360 to conceive product design, prototype products and, ultimately, create those products.

Between blueprints and final design, we evaluate aspects of our creations from 3D printing. This includes aspects such as balance, ergonomics, volume, possibility of materials and workmanship.

And as a start-up, Autodesk distributing Fusion 360 free of charge to companies like us was a key point in choosing the software.

Autodesk: Where do you see your business five years from now? In 10 years?

Nassif: We always look forward to new technologies and trends and how we can best seize on them to create experiences, relevant products and services for clients and the end users of their products. In five years, we plan to be a reference for the Brazilian market in the production of embedded digital solutions. This also takes into account the increasing demand for wearables, sensors and products based on the Internet of Things.

Ten years is a long time to think about how technology will further impact our business. There will be technological leaps that we cannot predict and, with the eyes of today, these innovations will likely look almost like magic. But we hope that in 10 years, Bolha will be a company recognized for its own products and established in the practice of customizing experiences and products for our clients and consumers alike. Customization and sense of ownership will be increasingly strong desires in relation to products being consumed, similar to what we’re seeing today with the maker movement.

Autodesk: What does the future of making things mean to you as an innovation ambassador?

Nassif: Being an innovation ambassador means having the responsibility of bringing innovation to more and more agencies, companies, groups and initiatives. It means promoting the ideals we believe that create or change the way we use our time on this planet. Modern civilization is constantly undergoing transformation, and the need for innovation is mandatory in almost all forms of relating to the world.