CareOregon case study

Last week we launched CareOregon's new website. The process included user surveys, usability tests, creating user personas, brand exploration, editorial, photography selection, sitemap and wireframing, and design. You can view the video below to hear more about the various deliverables.

The design was targeting to improve the level of user engagement and efficiency in users reaching their intended content. The following stats were pulled for CareOregon's new site comparing the month since the launch and the previous year's numbers for the same time period (2/7/10 to 3/5/10 and 2/7/11 to 3/5/11):

• +34.88% improvement in new visits
• -34.44% reduction in bounce rate
• +34.18% improvement in time spent on the site
• +10.46% improvement on the number of pages viewed per user
• +38.36% improvement on visitors sourced by search engines
• +35.77% on new visitors
• .02%of users relied on search (65th most visited page was search results). Previous: 10.1% , the 9th most visited page)

Check out this SlideShare Presentation. You can hit the Play button to hear the voice over:

CareOregon case study

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Video Produced for Cobalt Group

We just completed an animated video promoting Cobalt's new ad service. Cobalt is a web hosting and online advertising service for car dealerships. They wanted an innovative and fun video to send to their customers to introduce their new service offering without being boring while saying it. So the challenge was to take on a complicated concept and explain it in 2 minutes or less without putting to sleep the viewers.

PPMG concepted an idea using a rainmaker machine as the metaphor of how the service could create customer traffic. Our process was to break each element into its own separate deliverable.

First, we provided three summary concepts. Then after a concept was selected we made rough storyboard and attached narrative copy to it. We then provided three illustration styles to choose from as well as voice over talent selections. Once each was approved, we just stitched it all together and dropped it in Flash! You can see the preliminary sketches and the illustrations below:

Sometimes a brand needs a hero

Empty space ads, an innovative ad network service, scans a site and appends additional banner space to a website to increase advertiser's reach and content provider's revenue. I was thinking an owl would make a good logo - as in a knowing seeker that searches for empty space. The client was thinking Batman. And so, a hero was born, the Empty Space Girl!

The logo itself was devised to represent the contrasting metaphor of the negative space in the word "empty" then shown filled with the word "space". The color pallet was devised to create a unique differentiator for trade shows, networking events and of course, ads.

Trusted Places : Social Media in Europe

Trusted Places is a community website based in the United Kingdom. It is a forum for user-generated reviews of neighborhood pubs, services, and restaurants. Trusted Places came to Perfect Pixels Media Group because of our expertise in Social Media and Branding in order to help Trusted Places create a better user experience overall.

PPMG first spent time in a discovery phase where we came to understand Trusted Places’ audience, business goals, and the competitive space. From this we were able to work from an informed basis and we were able to effectively evaluate the registration process, create a refined information architecture, recommend A/B testing, and extend the brand.

We first engaged creating in a moodboard. This excellent tool allowed us to show Trusted Places a visual language that would articulate the brand going forward. Trusted Places readily bought into our vision because the Discovery phase allowed us to quickly show Trusted Places’ value through images, iconography and recommended messaging. From the moodboard, we were able to tweak the logo in a way that users would still relate to the old branding, but would emotionally connect with the new direction. This was also a basis for the design, value proposition, and message extensions.

PPMG is always cognizant of our clients’ budgets. In the spirit of offering the most value for the least amount of money to our customers, we suggested a short User Experience Definition phase. This high level study, through simple user flows, allowed us to confirm Trutsted Places core strategic user scenarios. These were based on existing pathways and the desired traffic flow per each business objective. PPMG helped Trusted Places create a larger, strategic view of their key user activities and we were able to propose enhanced user engagement. This exercise saved Trusted Places money because we had a solid base from which to work on the tactical user experience change requests. With a deeper understanding of the site and its users, we were able to make cogent, educated solution suggestions as we continued to work with the Trusted Places stakeholders. Changes during the design phase can be very costly; however, these sorts of targeted deep dives can provide rich information in a short period of time that can then be extended to the remaining phases of the project.

Trusted Places came to PPMG with a myriad of requests. Through the above, PPMG was able to identify that many of the ancillary requests looped back to the registration process. PPMG reviewed this and we were able to recommend email improvements, a more user-friendly and efficient registration flow -- which included the gateways to the registration page, follow-up emails, and the confirmation pages on the site. Our recommendations drove people to register while creating a better experience while doing so. Upon implementation of our recommendations, Trusted Places’ registration numbers went up, and there was higher user engagement and retention. Our research and recommendations also created a roadmap for PPMG to solve the ancillary requests of Trusted Places more efficiently.

The groundwork had been laid for an efficient re-architecting and redesign of the Home Page, the My Trusted Places page, and the Place Page. We worked to up the conversion opportunities, clarify the value proposition while driving registration and user-engagement. We also created a virtual “black book” experience for the registered Member. Users became much more aware of existing features and our changes drove usage, engagement, and stickiness.



PPMG is known for its holistic approach in helping its clients solve their new-media issues. We work closely with all of our clients to ensure their best interests are at the forefront. The layman may not initially understand the value of high-level studies and deep dives, but they ultimately pay for themselves in cost savings. PPMG works to base all of our recommendations and designs on the client’s strategy, business goals, and user profiles. Making something pretty has no value if it is not driving the significance of the brand while presenting information in a consumable manner.

Three Steps to marketing your iPhone app.

You've heard the news, seen the commercials and now you are excited to get started creating an iPhone application for your brand. Now you find yourself asking how do I get started?

First: You must establish a direction for your "new creation", are you going with a brand driven application, or an application "brought to you by" your brand? There is a distinct difference and value for both.

Second: Pricing matters in the competitive iPhone market. 0.99cents is the most common, $1.99 is a growing starting point. Here are a couple of strategies used by iPhone Developers

Strategy "Lite Version": If you believe that your app has the legs to crawl out ontop, then you may want to consider creating two versions of your application, a "lite and full version". Offer the lite version for FREE and with the right app, your user base will climb. The extended full version needs to also be available at the same time. This way, you allow the user to play one level or two, get them excited to download the full version, all within the app.

Strategy "Price it and then Promote the drop": You price out your app at say $1.99 or $2.99 and then run a special promotion for a price drop after you believe your app has hit it's highest point of sales, promote it like crazy as a limited time offer. You will see this happen quite a bit in the app store. But make sure you price it right. Too high can yield low returns. The lite version is a proven method, as it stands today.

Third: Create a microsite, viral campaign, and special twitter promotional that will get your app recognized. Viral Marketing is power!

We would love to help you with your application next steps. If you are interested, please contact jake@perfectpixels.com for details and a marketing evaluation.

Jewish Family Service Website Launches

Jewish Family Service (JFS) of Seattle has deep roots in the Puget Sound area with over 117 years of commitment to the community in the North West. JFS has grown from an agency that provided support to Jewish immigrants to a non-profit organization that services many diverse populations in the Seattle area.

JFS’ website was not adequately presenting the mission, scope, and strategy of JFS. Many of their users couldn’t effectively find the information and support they needed with the old design. JFS came to PPMG with these concerns and we worked very closely with them to solve for their complex situation.

PPMG embarked on two parallel tracks to meet the needs of JFS and its constituents. We entered into a Mood Board process to define the visual language of the site, as well as an Information Architecture phase where we defined the site structure and document taxonomy.

For the Mood Board, PPMG chose images and colors that would represent the various populations that JFS serves, as well as photographs of the founding mothers and shots of the Seattle area. This did several things. It gave JFS the opportunity to discuss and define the high level value of JFS and choose a library of images that would evoke appropriate emotional responses from their users. PPMG worked with JFS to create a visual language that would provoke a feeling trust, community, safety, and show concern. Our goal was to connect viscerally to the needs of the site user.

View the Mood Board here >

The IA phase was challenging because of the complexity of JFS’ offerings. We concluded that the best way to meet all site-interaction scenarios was to have navigation by both persona and by service. This created a difficult puzzle to solve, but we were able to effectively create a structure and navigational system that provided easy, intuitive access to all of JFS’s services in a manner that was easy to use and understand. JFS had ample content per page, so PPMG was able to easily flow the existing information into the new design.

The Mood Board and IA phases worked together to create a cost-efficient design process because all of the elements had been defined at a higher level. Repeated touches to the pages during the design phase was not necessary because consensus had been achieved before that phase started.

Through our collaborative efforts, JFS’s understanding of their audience, and PPMG’s expertise, within the first month of the newly designed site launch:
• Average user time spent on the site increased 81%
• The bounce rate decreased 22%
• Page views increased 54%

JFS had a limited budget, complex needs, and a short time frame. PPMG worked closely with the stakeholders through work sessions and presentations to provide a robust website, as well as a meaningful experience for both the JFS staff and the community that they serve.

View the live site here >

New Advert for Bluephone.com

BluePhone is a subscription service that provides online and phone support for consumers with computer and device problems. Perfectpixels was hired to create an advert spot to appear as a pre-roll for network webcasts. The objective was looking to create a fun take on their brand while representing the main issues BluePhone customers look to solve.

Our solution was to create a campy, fun and tongue-in-cheek set of characters accompanied with a voice over of an over-the-top announcer. The characters and scenes chosen were based on the personas of typical customers. Part of the advert was to create associated banners you can view here.

The Most Cynical Website So Far

Skittles.com takes its website with a far more realistic look at itself as an online entity than most other self-promotional product websites; inconsequential. The Skittles website is not really a site, but merely a portal to finding Skittles on other sites. The homepage and product pages are Wikipedia pages. The photos is a Flickr page, the videos section is a YouTube page, the Friends page is a Facebook group page, and the Chat page is a Twitter page.

Skittles is experimenting with the idea that an offline brand exists online elsewhere on other websites and not within its own branded confines. Its profound in a way with either a cynical look at itself, or a clever way to promote Skittles directly to where users may actually be talking about their product- not on skittles.com. Brilliant.

Brands live within us as well

The study done by Duke University found subjects that were flashed subliminally a logo had a different visceral reaction in later tests. When they were asked to do tasks later after being subliminally flashed a logo, their answers were more creative when flashed the Apple logo versus the IBM logo.

This is a fascinating look into the psyche of what we look to achieve with a strong brand. This is because the brand persona does not live within a company, but lives within its customers and those that interact with that brand.

That is why Volvo would never do it because they are a car company, if they ever sold a Volvo car seat, you don't even need to think about it- you know it would be safe. Because that is what they are all about and we as a consumer, viscerally identify with that message.

Target Begins Mutualist Message

Target has begun a new campaign focusing on how it gives back to the community. They are now contributing 5% of their income (averages US $3 million a week) to various causes. They apparently learned their lesson from the debacle in 2004 of banning the Salvation Army from their stores; not-so-ironically one of the non-profits they are now in partnership donating to. The press they received was very destructive and I am sure this metamorphosis of giving back to communities is part of that response.

They also are focusing on creating green construction with energy efficiency, water conservation and recycling materials. They just started their campaign demonstrating their mutualist message and it is getting very positive press as well as providing a differentiation from their competitor Wal-Mart who is seen as an anathema in many communities.

Brand Presentation Part Two at BizJam

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Brand Presentation Part One at BizJam

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You can also download the podcast!
Download the podcast of the presentation here.

The Two Biggest Pitfalls of Startups

We seem to find that our start-up clients are made up of two sorts. One where the business’ genesis was from a passion for a concept and a clear idea of what the product will be. The other is made up of those that find a hole in the marketplace or a window of opportunity but no real sense of the business itself. Either approach has advantages and disadvantages for creating a web-based business.

Startup Type One: Driven by a passion
Companies founded on passion and clear concept have most of their strategy laid out as a factor of the thought they have already put into the product and how deeply they understand their audience. The problem being is that those that have the passion, but possibly not the business acumen have trouble finding ways to monetize their business.

We have found that many of these businesses will have a great concept with a clear decision process but end up retooling when the customer growth doesn’t come. Another issue that they face is that they are too close to the concept and see themselves as the customer, sometimes missing important opportunities.

Startup Type Two: Driven by dollars
On the other hand, those who have a get-rich idea usually have the income side figured out but not necessarily a viable product. A website alone -- no matter how great the idea is -- will not make a difference to your bottom line unless it is created based on a thought-through product strategy and a significant brand promise (with supporting elements) to which customers can react.

We find that these kinds of startups can spend months moving boxes around without the intuition for which are the best ways forward, since they have no real sense of what the desired user interaction by the target audience actually is.

Getting the best of both worlds
The answer is to meld both. If you are missing a subject matter expert, hire one and make them consult throughout the branding and product development exercises. If you are missing the business acumen, hire someone that can find opportunities to monetize and grow your market. No matter the amount of fiddling, you can’t get there without both.

Ensure you have a solid base to which you can refer when there are business decisions to be made. Companies who have skipped this step always come back to it (if there is any money left) because making decisions on the basis of “that sounds like a good idea” or “people will like that” (without testing) invariably cost a lot of money to develop. This is because multiple iterations are needed to get it right or the mark is missed entirely with one big, expensive push. When there is no core strategy or focus upon which decisions are made, money is burned.

It is imperative that a start-up develop appropriate strategies that involve understanding who the target audience is and what they are all about, as well as how the company is differentiated in the competitive space. This will fuel the Brand strategy and enable the company to present the right face to the customer from the start. The brand can then be fleshed out and a visual language can be created that speaks viscerally to the customer. From the brand identity, messaging can be created to communicate the product benefit, the company ethos, and to connect deeply with the customer. The best money-making idea in the world won’t be worth a dime if your site doesn’t speak to your user. She must know what it’s about, how to use it, and want to come back.

An example of these pitfalls (but made it through the other side) was a recent client of ours, HomeSavvi. When we began working with them, they saw an opportunity to create a market for advertisers who wanted access to people looking to remodel. They had a vague sense of the tools the user would need, but not the actual decision points for what a user would require in order to use their service. The original result before they came to us was a site called Alphabet Lane with a muddled navigation and a disconnected user experience.

We worked with them to help them find the core value of their brand and to create a feature-rich user experience that could grow with their user base. The painful part was that the process to get there because they had to rename, rebrand, rearchitect, and rebuild from scratch- throwing away a very large majority of their original product. To see examples of the process HomeSavvi undertook, you can view it here:

Using Moodboards to define a brand system

When exploring a brand PPMG recommends the use of a Moodboard which will articulate the brand's visual language, how it's presented, and how it connects with the audience. It is a high-level, over-arching view, exploration and representation of the visceral impact of the brand concept. The Moodboard evokes the emotional, visceral, and user-benefit communication and brand perception elements and delivers it in a way that can be easily digested, extrapolated, and applied in real-world designs.

The Moodboard is a far more cost effective way to discover the brand's visual language than through the design process. Multiple iterations are easily implemented during Moodboard creation and finalization. True creative exploration can occur without costing thousands and thousands of dollars. The deliverable is then a baseline that is available for all subsequent design phases. It is the first step in engendering a communication system with meaning to which the user will become connected.

Moodboards follow the strategic goals of the company and provide a visual base for the identity, design, and the user experience going forward which includes:
* Hooking in the user emotionally
* Presenting the Brand value
* Presenting the message
* Creating the visual language of the company

The realized Moodboard direction can be applied to the entire suite of company communications.

Case in point:
For Alpha Graphics PPMG proposed a brand-forward approach to their website redesign. We put the emphasis on the high-touch customer relationship Alpha Graphics is known for. We extended the brand to be more customer-centric and we created a sub-brand element, Customer Alpha, that married their brand position with their name. We used the Greek alpha symbol to emphasize the direction. "Alpha" means first, so “customer alpha” means “customer first” which is Alphagraphics overarching brand position and promise. We chose this path to convey a powerful message that would distinguish AlphaGraphics as a premier printing service with unparalleled attention to its customers.

This treatment distinguishes AlphaGraphics from its competitors while reinforcing its relationship with its customers. It also speaks directly to AlphaGraphics' audience: Creative Directors, Art Directors, Marketing Directors, and major decision makers. The simplified, strong branding gets the point across that AlphaGraphics understands its audience and knows how to deliver top-quality service and printing products.

View Samples Here:
Moodboard pdf


Homepage Comp

Branding Yourself

Reactee is a new site with a brilliant idea- Billboard yourself as your own brand. The idea is that you walk around wearing a shirt that advertises people to text you.

This is brilliant from several angles; Reactee allows the myspace-type narcism to extend into the real world, it enables people to make their own message about themselves and express their individuality, and lastly while it is letting one to brand oneself, it is also quite clever how Reactee is also branding themselves at the same time.

Building Synergistic Business Communication Models

John Wheeler (colleague of Einstein) is quoted by Cosmic Search Magazine (Vol. 1 No. 4) as saying “No elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed (or registered) phenomenon.”

This means that unless and until the moment of observation the universe exists only as a possibility. PPMG incorporates this thinking with scenario planning in our approach to creating synergistic business communication models. By this we mean brands that are extensible, adaptive, and meaningful. We look at the uncertainties of the future and try to discover the undiscovered in the present.

Exploring uncertainty is a means by which we can create a context for what is presently thought to be known. It is an excellent tool with which we explore a wide range of possibilities for what cannot be known. Scenario planning, which is a strategic process of exploring uncertainty, challenges assumptions, identifies contingencies, anticipates changing paradigms, ignites creativity, and most importantly, identifies actionable items that make business models and communication plans vigorous and elastic.

PPMG’s process is not exhaustive by any means, but it does reveal paradigm shifts and points toward communication implications in the uncertain future. Going forward it is critical that businesses stay fluid, are aware, and frame their aspirations. We are not saying that the business ethos should be in constant flux, but rather adaptive to new trends and technologies.

We begin with the question at hand, “how will the brand become synergistic with the new, emerging communications paradigm,” and we look at the uncertainties surrounding this query. This is not a deterministic process but rather an intuitive one that is built on consensus. This process reveals the possibilities of the future and fixes them in the present. Once possibilities have context and can be described, they can then be used to form scenarios which can be evaluated with intelligence.

Our ultimate goal is a synergistic business model that is achieved by visualizing the paradigm created by the discovered scenario data. We take our newfound perspective and use it to re-evaluate existing communications. We identify the business dimension and message base. Then we visualize all this as a synergic communication scenario. From there we are able to create holistic, flexible, and above all meaningful brands that truly communicate the business ethos.

Should the medium drive the message?

For nearly half a century, consumer culture has been influenced by the notion that the “medium is the message.” Superficially understood, however, this cultural truism has become a straight-jacket for digital communication.

In their infancies, new media technologies are short-sightedly diagrammed by their moving parts rather than imagined according to the sum of those parts. Consequently, brand message in the digital world is too often conveyed within a narrow mechanistic world view that prioritizes information over communication. In this world view, the challenge to communicate a brand’s strategic, experiential and fundamentally humanistic dimensions is largely forsaken, displaced by the sterile, safe predictability afforded in uniform site structure sparsely furnished with animated obstacles. When the medium myopically drives the message, the creative engine of brand message is short-circuited.

Or should the message drive the medium?

Against the increasingly formulaic strictures of the existing world view, the emerging imperative for the next wave of digital agencies demands just communication of a brand’s significance. As a complex tapestry of intellectual, emotional and experiential dimensions, each brand message calls for media through which it can be conveyed with equal richness and vitality. Expressing these intricacies in cyberspace requires that the realization of digital media pertain to a new design paradigm. Henceforth, brand message must inspire the design of digital media, shaping the contours of the medium itself to become a means of real communication for the virtual realm.