Digital

30 August 2011

The Yellow Lines | B2B Marketing Awards Finalist 2011 | Best use of Social Media

Social Media Campaign for Cobalt Telephone Technologies | RingGo

Birddog was appointed to build a dynamic, engaging, creative awareness campaign to protect RingGo’s position as the premier supplier of car-parking support services whilst influencing industry decison makers and regulators alike. Following significant revisions to major contract allocations immediate action was required, to minimise misleading third-party information surrounding the changes to parking payment service provisions in the South-West of England.

The Strategy:

Within 24 hours, Birddog created and launched ‘The Yellow Lines’, a blog-based user community sponsored by RingGo, but managed and run independently. The urgency of the campaign required a hard-hitting launch, utilising the speed of both email marketing and Twitter to support its messages. Central blog articles became the focus for user comment, concerns and discussion.

The strategy was to focus users of the RingGo brand into a single online community where customer opinion could be shared, thereby influencing business decision makers. Core content would direct the conversation, but the social and transparent functionality (comments/feedback) allowed contributors freedom to both redirect the conversation and, more importantly, provide the right of reply. Community response, positive or negative to the RingGo brand, was permitted.

With only 2 weeks before planned service changes, any attempt to overturn decisions that had already been made was unrealistic. It was therefore essential that the strategy offered long term value beyond the initial launch period. Value would be achieved from the strategy by creating a community of active, passionate (and independent) RingGo users who would not s imply complain about changes to car parking support services, but advocate RingGo’s mobile parking solution generally.

Establishing the best social channels was imperative to the success of the campaign. With extremely tight time and budget constraints it was essential to develop a campaign that could resonate and engage with the community on various levels.

The social aspect of the campaign allowed users to engage with the blog content and share posts and comments through other associated channels (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn). This helped content reach new audiences quickly, widening campaign reach and overall engagement. Working alongside the blog and Twitter, email marketing was used to activate the initial core audience and throughout the campaign as a call-to-action channel.

The Results:

Within 14 days ‘The Yellow Lines’ had received over 22,000 unique visits, over 800 comments, and had achieved a positive sentiment value of 99.8%. Birddog had created a community based marketing asset that continued to grow, clearly distinguishing and highlighting RingGo’s unique product offering and competitive advantage.

Community building/ Raising awareness

  • Over 22,000 unique visits and over 800 comments
  • Over 800 comments in the critical first two weeks
  • 99.8% positive sentiment
  • Local Media Newspaper Coverage
  • BBC Radio Coverage

Long-Term

  • Independent searchable customer reference site
  • Ongoing/ growing digital asset
  • Proven competitive advantage on key elements of operations: trust, innovation, service support and security

What did Birddog do?

  • Social Media Consultancy
  • WordPress Blogging Platform Design & Creation
  • Twitter Profile Design & Creation
  • Content Strategy & Planning
  • Blogging & Content Creation
  • Cross-Platform Community Engagement and Management
  • Analytics Measurement & Reporting
  • Digital Asset Transfer (end of project)

read more

Tags:

0 Comments

Brand

27 October 2010

The Business of a Top 100 Brand

For the last decade, Interbrand has been producing an annual report on the top 100 ‘Best Global Brands’. It makes interesting reading. It doesn’t make truly compelling reading though, and it doesn’t offer much in the way of deep insight. Perhaps that’s to be expected – it’s the nature of the beast. When you’re looking for trends across 100 global brands it’s no real wonder that the common ground ends up being generic.

It’s a bit like the ‘Top 100 TV Moments’, and the ‘Top 100 Movie Moments’, and all the other ‘Top 100 Moments’ that exist as TV scheduling fillers. Whilst the journey through the respective ‘Top 100 [insert filler of your choice]’ can be an interesting one, you can be fairly certain that your personal favourite isn’t going to be number one. It is a source of constant disappointment to me, for example, that the angelic harmonising of the Von Trapp Family in the classic Sound of Music never actually makes it to number one anywhere except in my dreams.

And so, because we all kind of knew the report findings this year – the economy’s in the shitter, the financial brands have taken a pasting, no one trusts anyone anymore, social media and the digital landscape’s a bitch and none of the big brands really know how to deal with it globally… – I thought it might be helpful to offer an additional insight from Interbrand’s work that may offer some hope to the B2B community.

Seven of the Top Ten Global Brands achieve a significant proportion of their revenues from the B2B sector. Seven. Of the top ten. B2B.

I thought that was pretty impressive for the Business to Business market. IBM, Microsoft, Google, General Electric, Intel, Nokia, HP – they’re all big B2B players. Using Interbrand’s statistics, they have a combined brand value of over $300bn. That means those seven B2B brands in the Top 10 have a higher brand value than all the other B2C brands in the Top 20 combined ($271bn). Not too shabby.

So whilst we’re all scrabbling around in the muck and bullets of day-to-day B2B marketing life, it’s worth remembering that we have a significant pedigree to live up to. The next time someone tells you that ‘brands’ are things they buy in supermarkets, just remind them that, actually, the top brands are mainly B2B. (Then sniff the air, turn on your heel and exit leaving only a ‘talk to the hand’ gesture for them to remember you by…)

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Twitter

read more

Tags:

0 Comments

Development

5 October 2010

The niu online presence

niu is a fresh name in the IT and telecoms industry, a purpose-built company that integrates four high value brands with wide ranging sector experience into one fully converged solutions provider. niu is headquartered in central London with 200 staff and a broad supplier network that includes brands such as IBM, Orange, Cisco, Microsoft, VMware, Mitel, Avaya, and T-Mobile.

Over the past 12 months Birddog has worked to fully rebrand and integrate the business with three other companies. niu required a powerful new identity with the potential to deliver long-term benefits, differentiate in a competitive industry and increase ROI. The company also needed to reinvigorate its online space with a contemporary website, in line with modern web practices and user features, to maximise sales and new business enquiries. Birddog designed the niu website www.niu-solutions.com to provide instant credibility and interest to visitors, creating a vivid first impression of the brand, with simple navigation and quick access to key areas of value.

Following the development and roll out of a brand strategy project, new corporate identity, an edgy Creative Platform® and a focus on brand awareness across online and offline media, Birddog launched the niu website in September 2010 – www.niu-solutions.com.

A suite of internal marketing tools were also provided to ensure long term brand consistency and buy-in from niu employees was achieved.

Birddog is niu’s lead/retained agency, contracted to deliver the long term development of the brand’s reputation, both online and offline, through consistent creative approach, a sound social media strategy and an implementation strategy that is dedicated to building niu’s brand awareness.

What Did Birddog Do?

  • Brand Workshop
  • Brand Strategy
  • Creative Platform®
  • Photography
  • Corporate Identity
  • Internal Marketing Campaign/Tools
  • Digital Planning – Functional Spec and Sitemaps
  • Digital Design and Development
  • Bespoke CMS build, Training and Database Design
  • Search Engine Optimised, Inter-related Content with High Keyword Density
  • Implementation of Social Media Strategy and Policy

read more

Tags:

0 Comments

Creative

29 September 2010

Corporate Identity

You may have noticed that Birddog has recently undergone a new makeover. Not the kind where an overly tactile Gok Wan leaves Birddog shivering in front of a mirror while the nation observes every fold and crevice. No this makeover was far subtler but much needed.

Gone are the much-loved images of dogs with wings and in their place, a vibrant and agile colour palette that complements our new creative direction. To match Scot and the Birddog team’s frequent and active observations in B2B literature and all things digital we now have a clean and conversational serif typeface that is flexible in both core messaging and focused body copy.

The logo itself has only experienced a few minor tweaks. It wasn’t necessary to meddle with what has evolved into essentially an already distinctive wordmark in the B2B Agency arena.

The Birddog wordmark still looks as relevant today as it did 15 plus years ago. Instead, it now sits within a circle, that can be cropped at 88% and anchored to the top of our outgoing collateral.

The Birddog ‘paw’ has been removed and is now only used as a secondary graphic device, as it was felt that the wordmark could now stand out on its own without it. This will now be used sparingly to accentuate the brand as opposed to an over-use of it as a graphic element.

Everything has been stripped right down to a clean, simple and uncluttered identity. The premise being that our new and minimal look will allow our work and our content to speak for itself.

Over a period of time we will add a more illustrative element to the brand so be alert. The ‘winged’ quadrupedal may return in a new incarnation…

read more

Tags:

0 Comments

Development

9 September 2010

Nickleby – FM with attitude

Nickleby is a leading Facilities Management and Maintenance company based in Hampshire, UK, providing a number of core services including Managed FM, Maintenance Support, Maintenance Services and a unique Software Solution, Emergense.

Nickleby’s aim is to do for commerce what the tractor did for agriculture: helping clients maximise the value they achieve from their maintenance spend. Already appointed by some of the UK’s leading brands, Nickleby was keen to extend their own brand’s awareness through online channels – as a serious offering within the Facilities Management industry. Nickleby wanted to communicate its brand to a new audience in the online space. Enter Birddog.

In March 2010, Birddog launched the new Nickleby website, positioning the company as more than just maintenance management experts. Birddog was enlisted to create the ultimate platform for generating brand awareness and lead generation, following a previous rebranding project.

Birddog created Nickleby’s website with user-centred design at the core, boasting savvy development and a bespoke CMS. Nickleby’s brand values, visual identity and tone of voice now combine consistently across the site with a clear and compelling call to action on every single page. The new site has driven the Nickleby brand forwards within an online market that is growing significantly year-on-year.

Since the site’s launch, Nickleby has been building a successful online reputation through the linking of social media, blog posts, a Twitter feed and a team dedicated to the Nickleby brand, achieving some of the fantastic results below.

Results:

  • 170% increase in site visits
  • 50% decrease in bounce rate
  • 500% increase in time spent on site per visit
  • 60% increase in unique visits

The project included:

  • Digital Planning – Functional Spec and Sitemaps
  • Digital Design, Photography and Development
  • Bespoke CMS build, Training and Database Design
  • Clear, Consistent Navigation with One Click Drop Down Menus
  • Signposting, Colour Coding and Service Iconography
  • Daily News Feed, Company Blog and RSS Feed
  • Search Engine Optimised, Inter-related Content with High Keyword Density
  • Implementation of Social Share Icons and Search Feature
  • Hosting

Visit Nickleby: http://www.nickleby.co.uk

read more

0 Comments