We’ve been helping our firiends at the leading PR agency, Brands2Life, this month, helping them to create an ad dramatising one of their most spectacular achievements!
The agency was asked to deliver a high impact launch for the introduction of the new Nikon 1 camera. Their campaign of six-metre high hands in capital cities across Europe certainly delivered.
Our ad for the agency just takes that dramatic statement and puts it on the page.
Web maintenance and updating is one of those subjects that splits clients down the middle. Some of them just say, “You do it,” and we do. Others say, “No. We’d like to have the opportunity to update some or all of our site.”
Our 'Dynamics in the Cloud' website for Tectura was built using WordPress.
Those in the latter group, sometimes have a different option (if we know that is what they’re going to need from the outset!); we can build their site (or microsite) using the wonderful toolset provided by WordPress.
This blog is (of course) built in WordPress, but there are plenty of customised WordPress sites all over the world that you would be hard-pressed to spot, and because WordPress was built for bloggers, it is amazingly easy to update – even for non-specialist users like me!
WordPress gives those who want to have it, complete control over the pages that make up their site. They can add graphics, sound or video. They can provide links to other pages and other sites. Best of all, they can provide the complete information on a page that will help it to be found by search engines very easily.
Sites built in this way are ideal for a topical occasion (a product launch perhaps or a sales conference) and because they are so easy to add to or amend, marketing and PR people really like them. Especially when the new site can be shown to really add to traffic – and, yes, you get an inbuilt traffic monitor too!
If you would like to find out more about this option, please get in touch.
Some PR agencies like to invest in their own in-house design capabilities. Others either aren’t of a sufficient size, or they just like to choose the right designers for the right project. After all, design, like a pair of shoes, doesn’t come in one size for everyone.
Even a big agency like financial specialists FD have been known to look to WildWest for design and programming skills, and over the years, we’ve worked variously for Brands2Life, Octopus (and their Loudhouse research subsidiary), Bite, Lexis and Hill and Knowlton.
The projects have included everything from interview sets for British Lions rugby, through to client magazines, props for photoshoots, websites and advertising. Some of these companies have come to us because of our particular knowledge of sponsorship and sponsorship activation; others for more general help, or to ask whether something they have in mind is actually feasible.
Seve backs Spain's bid to host the Ryder Cup
Madrid is one of the cities bidding to stage the 2018 Ryder Cup, the golf competition that pits the best of Europe against the best of America. Wild West was pleased to help out British PR agency, Lexis by designing and producing some impressive branded clothing and other materials for the launch – all produced in double-quick time, in order to be ready for the launch event which featured Spanish golfing legend Seve Ballesteros.
Sadly, Ballesteros will not now be able to play the four demonstration holes at next week’s British Open, to be staged at St Andrews, the scene of some of his greatest triumphs. His recovery from brain surgery and consequent therapy simply won’t allow it.
Gosh, it’s 10 years since we designed the logo for a new PR company called Brands2Life.
Now, they are one of the most successful PR outfits around with a client list that is based in technology and telecomms, but stretches a long way into other areas too.
And they are still a client of Wild West! Over the years, we’ve worked on web, advertising, direct marketing, print design and display projects for the agency directly and for its clients.
We would like to add our congratulations to Giles Fraser and Sarah Scales, who have made Brands2Life such a success over 10 years.
Blogs like this one aren’t difficult to set up. The difficult thing is to keep them updated regularly with news from your company. If you do manage to do that, though, you should see some tangible results and sooner than you might think too.
The web is an information medium, but it’s a news medium too, one where (for example) experts can provide very succinct nuggets of information (and we’d like to think that this is one of those!) which help to showcase your company’s capabilities and what it is good at.
That’s exactly the kind of content – continually refreshed and updated – that search engines love. Too often, web sites are treated like the annual report. ‘We did that months ago’ – people tell us, without realising that by failing to refresh and update content, they are losing potential visitors and more importantly, the business that comes with an understanding of your special expertise.
Wild West is a team of people – designers, programmers and marketing experts – all of whom can bring to bear particular expertise on issues that regularly face commercial organisations – from identity and branding, through to the creation of documents and web resources that will help the business to grow.
A blog is part of today’s marketing toolkit. Ignore it, and you might just be turning your back on business.
Blogs can focus on a specific aspect of your business, on an area of specialisation or something you are particularly proud of (like a sponsorship deal or a social responsibility programme). In fact, today’s blogging software is often enough to organise and publish all the marketing information that a smaller, specialist company may have the bandwidth to put out. That could mean that it might be able to do without the expense of a web site altogether, at least at the outset. Something to think about there, particularly for start-up companies!
Once upon a time, everyone loved Flash animations, and the thing to have was a big animated sequence on your home page to entice everyone into your site. (We did a wonderful one for Mezzanine Management – a floating and revolving logo on a black background – but it took a long time to load!)
Nowadays, businesses need to know that if someone just visits the home page of your site, there will be something there that tells them very quickly what the company does, who its products or services are designed for, and why someone in their target market might want to read further.
These days, its all about targetting and measurement, and if possible, having your clients and potential clients come back time after time, maybe by giving privileged access to certain information for key individuals.
They won’t do that if your web content is flat and uninteresting; if your news section hasn’t been updated for six months; if your contact information is out of date. Yet all of these things still happen.
A web site should be like a magazine, not an inscription on a stone. The content should change regularly, and be interesting too. Why should I read this page? Should be the first question you ask about your site. Why? Because that’s what every visitor will be asking too. (Inflexion – see the post below – is a great example).
Our identity for Brands2Life's Making BrITain Great Again initiative
Some PR agencies have in-house design resources, others don’t. In both situations, Wild West has been able to add value and effectiveness to PR campaigns, by providing specialist design, marketing or programming skills.
In-house resources are sometimes over-stretched. Sometimes, there needs to be a fresh injection of creativity or experience in a specific area.
Wild West understands the needs and demands placed on PR agencies and over the years we’ve worked in conjunction with some of the leading agencies in their field. Hill and Knowlton, FD, Brands2Life, Lawson Clarke, and Bite among them, helping them to create all kinds of materials to aid publicity – reports and proposals, product and corporate brochures, display material, props and photo backdrops, logos and websites.
Most recently, we worked on the campaign that Brands2Life are running on behalf of their high tech client, Micro Focus. Making Britain Great Again (www.makingbritaingreat.co.uk) is aimed at creating many more high-tech, high-value jobs for Britain.
If you work in high-tech and you have a view on the future prosperity of Britain, why not visit the site and leave a comment?
The Making BrITain Great campaign, initiated by MicroFocus and their PR agency Brands2Life has attracted an impressive list of supporters for their technology and jobs manifesto, published on July 21. If you’re involved in technology, you can leave a comment or add your name to the supporters list at their web site www.makingBrITaingreat.co.uk Wild West designed the manifesto and the accompanying web pages.