RSPCA engaged Precedent to design and develop this campaign microsite.  

Sean Gardiner, Head of Precedent Australia said: “Having worked together previously on the Political Animal Australia project, www.politicalanimal.org.au, for federal and state elections and on the digital strategy for this national charity we are very happy to work with RSPCA Australia again for yet another great cause.

Campaigns are about people – reacting, doing, banding together – and Precedent came up with creative ideas putting RSPCA’s users in the heart of both the campaign and online experience, complementing offline activities and making the most of this micro site as well as incorporating social media.

This is an exciting start to a potentially four year long campaign to influence and engage politicians and egg producers to do the right thing and for egg consumers to spend an extra 20 cents to buy cage-free eggs - all to get hens out of cages once and for all.

It also asks whether these organisations are really embracing the opportunities that the contemporary digital landscape presents, and if they have the necessary marketing and brand strategies in place to leverage them.

What did we do?

In order to inform and build on our understanding of the sector we conducted an online survey where over 60 different membership organisations answered a number of questions about the internal and external communications challenges that they face and their use o the digital space. We then conducted a series of interviews with senior stakeholders from a variety of different organisations.

What does the report contain?

The report is framed around seven themes. It offers a series of digital actions relative to different stages of the membership lifecycle that organisations could potentially employ to address the issues. Finally the report emphasises the need for coherent digital and brand strategies, and reveals a representative framework model which all organisations should aspire to.

The themes covered include:

Communicating the value of membership
Too much content, too many sources
The right community for the right audience
Knowing when to leave members alone
Mobile is here, now
Our most valued asset: the magazine
Physically growing or digitally reaching

Finally, the report will bring these themes together and illustrate how co-ordinated digital and brand strategies can be developed to ensure organisation-wide buy-in and communication coherence.

The report is due to be released in June 2012. If you would like to receive a copy please register for it now and we will be sure to send you a copy as soon as it is published.

We are also holding a free breakfast seminar to discuss our findings in more detail.

Formed in 1994, Dana’s rapid growth and financial success has made it a stock market favourite in recent years. Under new ownership and with a dynamic new management team in place, the company has exciting plans to develop operations beyond its existing bases in the North Sea, Norway, The Netherlands, Egypt and West Africa. The rebrand is designed to strengthen and support this international growth.

Director of Group Communications and External Affairs, Andrew McCallum said:

“We’re delighted to be working with Precedent on the development of a brand positioning that will stretch from oil and gas rigs 200 km offshore, to the company’s new headquarters in Aberdeen, to a new online and social media presence. Our new identity is a central pillar in the broader communications and external affairs programme we’ll be delivering in 2012 and beyond.”

After a competitive bid process, this was a truly satisfying win for Precedent and one which we are very much looking forward to getting stuck in to.

From working extensively with clients looking to extend their reach, we know that sussing out a target audience on their home turf and really understanding their needs is crucial if an internationally targeted project is to succeed. It is this certainty, or peace of mind, that we are developing and securing for our clients as the world gets smaller and audiences get bigger.

Paul’s looking at a very hectic schedule during which time he hopes to reassure our current and prospective clients that we’re working with the highest calibre of digital experts across the three major cities. 

Shortly after Paul’s return in November, Mark Sherwin, commercial director, will head out to Australia. Among many things, Mark will be co-presenting two usability seminars in Perth and Melbourne and co-hosting the launch party for Precedent Perth’s enlarged office. Crucially, Mark will be visiting Melbourne where the foundations for Precedent’s next Australian office have been laid.

Both Paul and Mark’s trips signify a very successful 2011 for Precedent as we continue to grow our reputation and spread our expertise internationally. We are looking forward to developing our partnerships abroad, working on even more international projects and seeing our Melbourne office open for business in 2012. 

The brief for the students involves conceptualising creative solutions in a bid to change the behaviour of Cardiff residents in regards to local transport. The aim of the council's existing campaign, KeepCardiffMoving is to encourage residents to replace their cars with other forms of transport and make Cardiff a Sustainable Travel City. The students will have to think about how to target their audiences and consider any obstacles to communicating this message, as well as suggest and create solutions to tackle the issue.

For Precedent's part, senior designer Ed Richards will be holding meetings once a week over the next four weeks, with one of eight small groups of students in Precedent's Cardiff office. Ed will mentor the students through the project, discussing ideas, giving feedback and setting deadlines. He will be drawing on their strengths and helping to tease the most from their creativity.

The aim of the project is really two-fold: on the one hand there's a live brief which, if the final submission is to the council's liking, could be implemented by Cardiff Council and be a shining example of home-grown talent from students at UWIC. On the other, it is to help educate the students giving them exposure to the design community, real work experience and generally giving them a feel for the industry.

Mark will be speaking on Thursday 20th October, in session 5 at 1600. 

Find out more about NAPF's Annual Conference & Exhibtion 2011. 

We are contributing two talks to the event:

Getting the formual right: optimised mobile design + considered content = success

Wednesday 31st August, breakout session 4, 12:00 - 12:45

In this talk Nicholas Oliver will tackle the issues surrounding going mobile and argue why it should be considered for every digital strategy. He will look at some best practice around the options open to you as well as how you can hope to deliver and extend your mobile platform. 

The business of universities

Wednesday 31st August, breakout session 6, 16:00 - 17:30

Paul Hoskins, Precedent's founder and chairman, will consider the allure of a new third revenue stream for universities through consultancy and business services. Few universities understand the real costs of delivering third stream services and most struggle to do so within the constraints of a structure optimised for teaching, learning and research. Paul and the panel will examine the good, the bad and the ugly of third stream university marketing communications and present a vision for a commercially focused, agile and market-led operation. This session will be an interactive debate with senior leaders and the audience to discuss the controversial idea that universities need to see themselves as mainstream operations.

We will also be exhibtiing at stand 27 in the main hall at the conference centre, so please do pop along and say hello. We always enjoy seeing new and old faces at CASE events - see you there!

If you work for one of the 50 financial service companies that we looked at then clearly you will be interested in our findings. And of course if you work for any other bank, asset management company, building society or you work in assurance, insurance or life and pensions, then you will no doubt recognise some of your peers in its pages.

However, even if you are not in the financial world, but are involved in social media, the user experience, mobile, governance or digital strategy, there will be something of interest to you.

What's in it?

You will discover the degree to which UK financial service companies are using the contemporary digital landscape and what they are using it for. Along the way you will see examples of good and bad practice, receive strategic tips on the use of a variety of digital channels from our experts, understand some of the opportunities that these channels offer and, of course, see what we think about the overarching online financial landscape.

Why 'Integration or isolation?'

In its conceptual stages this title was intended to pose the question as to whether these companies' digital channels are integrated and serving a common purpose. However, as our research progressed, a bigger question emerged. We wondered whether internally these companies have an integrated model capable of making best use of the contemporary digital landscape as it is now and as it evolves or whether they are working in isolation towards independent departmental and individual goals?

Certainly we found only a few examples where companies clearly have the team, the expertise and the underpinning strategy in place to take coherent advantage of the opportunities of The Digital Landscape for UK Financial Services.

For your copy of the report simply request online or drop us an email at reports@precedent.co.uk, including finance in the subject line.

Drop by our London studio on Tuesday 26 July from 2pm - 5pm, when the creative team will be on hand to chat through your portfolio, give feedback and discuss options for starting your career in a UK top 10 design agency. You can have a snoop around the studio, see how we work and why considering starting your career at Precedent could be the best thing you ever did.

Our design team will also give a short presentation showcasing the kind of projects we work on here at Precedent, highlighting the opportunities that come from working here to grow, develop and ease in to working life.

While the main event will be held in our London studio, our Cardiff and Edinburgh offices will also be open to any inquisitive graduates who would like to find out more and gain some valuable feedback. Who knows, if you're the right person, we might find a place for you...

If you'd like to say hello and take advantage of some free creative advice with the possibility of landing yourself a job, drop us a line on twitter @PrecedentJobs with the tag #PrecGradEvent.

Come and show us what you've got!

The Play to Learn initiative was initially created to encourage 3–7 year olds to develop their physical and creative movement skills using fun story-based character books, printed materials and a CD-ROM.

Now, Sport Wales, whose main site was also designed by Precedent, has teamed up with us again to create a diverse and engaging subsite to bring online life to the characters from the books.

Although the Play to Learn website's primary focus is to help children play and learn at home with their parents, it is a useful extension to the resources that Sport Wales provides for schools too. It has a children's section full of exciting animation, while the grown-ups' area has more in depth advice on how to help children learn about physical movement.

Importantly, the site demonstrates the compatibility of practical activity, playing and having fun with skill development for physical, as well as creative movement.

From a technical point of view, the bilingual site, which is built in Umbraco, was fully integrated in to Sport Wales' main website, while integration with YouTube brings in the animations and video clips.

Practically, users move through the site by following the step-by-step 'Learn Skills' application. Here, the user can pick from 1 of 5 characters, before 1 of 5 locations, and then 1 of 33 activities to learn and practise a physical activity.

Coinciding with the launch of the all-new Play to Learn site, Sport Wales is also championing a brand new online shop which will sell Play to Learn products from box sets for schools with info and games to CDs and guides for families at home.

While the site is colourful, fun and interactive, it is crucial to note that the Play to Learn initiative is more than just a marketing campaign; its driving interest is to change the lives of young children through sport.

The Play to Learn initiative contributes to Sport Wales' aspiration to get every child hooked on sport for life by encouraging children to participate and enjoy sport from an early age, and continue into adulthood. Sport Wales also hopes to encourage more parents and volunteers to roll their sleeves up and join in on the fun as they have so much to offer this mission.

Head of People and Programme Development (PPD) at Sport Wales, Helen Hughes said:

"The key to Play to Learn is providing every child and young person with the skills and confidence from an early age to be physically literate through high quality, engaging sporting experiences.

"We're confident that the new online resource will complement the package perfectly and prove another successful tool in developing skills for participation into the future."

He leaves Precedent's functioning in the trusted and capable hands of the newly appointed managing director, Neil Davis and commercial director, Mark Sherwin.

Neil joined Precedent four years ago and has been at the heart of the company's function as operations director. From resourcing through to finances, Neil has consistently made sure Precedent remains on an even keel. Mark, a Precedent veteran, has been with the company for 15 years. He has seen it evolve and change from a small consultancy in to the respected digital agency it is today. He moves from the post of business development director, having donned many hats to help Precedent achieve its success.

Paul Hoskins said: "I am absolutely delighted with how the company has thrived through the last 12 months. I am very excited by the new energy, staff and projects that have emerged and it is because of all this I am able to take a step back from the day to day running of the business to focus on entirely new initiatives and opportunities for Precedent's growth."

Precedent's board is also set to see a boost as a result ofthis success with new appointments to cover technical, creative and strategy over the coming months; most notably, we are delighted that Phil Jones, Podge founder and all round industry guru, has joined Precedent as a board advisor.

All of these changes are the result of a truly successful 2010, something we hope to enhance and continue through 2011.

What's the report all about?

The conversation about financial service firms' services and products (and therefore their reputation) is increasingly being conducted away from their websites, in the social media space. The question is, how well are they engaging in those conversations? How well are they using them to enhance their reputation, and ultimately drive business to their websites?

Similarly we wanted to look at how well their websites cater to the needs of 'the man on the street' – are the features and services that they are likely to expect available and easy to use?

Which organisations did we look at?

We wanted to look at a broad range of companies offering a selection of products and services in the following categories:

• Banks
• Building societies
• Asset management
• Insurers, life and pensions
• Online only financial services firms

In order to select companies we took a random sample of 10 from the most well-known high street brands in each category. Despite some of them being less well-known, we felt it was important to include companies that are providing a product, or service, purely online in a distinct category, since we anticipate that these will be the most innovative online and potentially provide the best practice and benchmarks to which the others might aspire.

What were we looking for?

Our assessment was mostly quantitative running across digital channels including web, blogs, social, mobile and video/audio. A key question will be the degree of integration across these channels, and therefore the cohesion of the user-journey. Where appropriate we identified and featured examples of best and worse practice.

Broad themes discovered whether channels are being used appropriately to deliver thought leadership and insight, customer services, marketing and campaigning (in promotion of products and services) and transactional services.

What did we find?

We identified which categories of financial service companies in the UK are making the most use of the contemporary digital landscape, along with examples of best practice that all may learn from.

As a focal point for the MS Week campaign, the MapMS site has three simple objectives:

• to allow people to share their MS story by uploading a (pre-moderated) video to the site (hosted on YouTube)

• to drive people to get involved with the MS Week campaign and spread the word to others

• to generate interest and excitement for the MS Register (to be unveiled in MS Week).

Users will register before uploading film and text which will be located by a pin at their geographical location on an embedded Google map. The content will be hosted on a dedicated 'MapMS' YouTube channel.

Clicks through from the map will lead to a dedicated page for each piece of content with the YouTube film automatically embedded and title, short description etc pulled through from the YouTube channel.

Once users have signed up and uploaded approved content, they will get an automated email inviting them to "pass it on" via social media. By providing an intuitive and accessible interface for uploads, users can generate content as well as have the ability to spread it through the "share this" module.

The site complies with the BS8878 accessibility code.

www.mapms.org.uk

Now in its fifth year, and open to graduates for the first time, Art of Nurture is designed to support and encourage UK artistic talent. The competition was developed in partnership with Arts & Business, a national not-for-profit arts agency. Sophie's winning entry, a collage of a city scene, may now be used in a Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance's advertising campaign.

A graduate from the Glasgow School of Art, Sophie's entry was one of over 600 initially. It sounds like the judges had a tough time to whittle it down to just 10 graduate and 12 student finalists, before picking Sophie as the winner of the graduate category.

Sophie said: "I am super excited about winning, it was totally unexpected. I have just started a new job in Edinburgh, doing digital design and I hope that this prize will give me the confidence to pursue commercial as well as personal artwork."

Simon Featherstone, managing director, Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance, said: "For the fifth year running we have been overwhelmed by the dedication of these young artists and the quality of their work.

"My heartfelt congratulations to Sophie. I know the judges had a tough time choosing the winner and I look forward to seeing her work used across our advertising campaign in the year ahead."

From everyone at Precedent, well done Sophie!

Our main challenge was to create a welcoming interface for the user, encouraging engagement and subscription for alerts in various formats. We also devised an effective administration interface that makes content entry easy and is hoped to encourage stakeholders to contribute high quality and well categorised content on a regular basis.

To ensure this, it was essential that the CMS allowed contributors to submit content for approval by the central team of 'super users' seamlessly. It needed to be an effective and somewhere these 'super users' could easily maintain, update, and control content, avoiding duplication and repetition.

While incorporating the NHS blue and white, the site also harnesses some London character with the Thames running through the headline banner image. We developed a new information architecture as well, sensitive to the needs of key stakeholders and users. Overall, the site has a clean, stream-lined, modern look.

Open to NHS London's varied audience including, GPs, chief executives, local authorities, MPs, interest and patient groups and resilience partners, it is intended to be a resource where users can log in, subscribe to email updates and/or RSS feed, on areas of interest to them.

The overall hope is for it to make NHS London's communications more efficient and relevant while removing duplication.

Since going live, other strategic health authorities across the UK have expressed interest in doing something similar which is a real win for everyone who worked so hard on this project. Well done!

Visit the site and sign up here, www.mynhsalerts.london.nhs.uk.

The site was to coverfour main governing systems, including Westminster, the Welsh Assembly, localgovernment authorities for both England and Wales and the European Union. Indoing so, it was vital that users could move seamlessly through the site, whileeasily recognising when they were switching between sections.

From a design point of view,RSPCA wanted to keep an element of the look and feel of previous electionsites, however, the cute and engaging images we used for the public facingsites were to be less of a feature as this site was to have a distinctly moreprofessional feel to it. The site retained the timeline built in JavaScript andTwitter feed which were both incorporated in previous Political Animal sites.

It uses the latest version of theModX Revolution CMS and we also created a special user area, where MPs can signup to get specific documents, reports and information which may not beexclusively available to the public (?).

So what does the site include?

About the RSPC: it gives politicians an introduction to what the RSPCA is all about and the work it does

FAQs: responding to animal welfare queries from specific constituencies

Key facts and figures about the state of animal welfare in the UK

How the RSPCA works with other organisations

Briefings and information on various animal welfare issues such as animal fighting, non-domestic pets and micro-chipping

Information about political campaigns or links to other RSPCA microsites

Suggestions about what politicians can do to help with particular issues, including information on the RSPCA political team.

www.politicalanimal.org.uk

Among other things, the site is now the first port of call for those looking to book tickets for racing events. Previously, the site used an extensive telephone booking service, which was costly and not nearly as speedy as the new ticket system. The links and calls to action for bookings are now much more visible throughout the site, with users strongly encouraged to follow these routes instead of picking up the phone.

We wanted the visual area to engage their many different audiences in a clear but personal way; we did this by using large imagery so users feel like they're getting to experience Newmarket, along with well structured page content to allow for skim reading. The new site makes it much easier to showcase these numerous other business opportunities throughout.

Crucially, we gave the team far more flexibility in the way they can update content and promote areas other than just horseracing.

There are also of techy treats, including a newly created, auto-updated, fixtures management system. This will not only save a great deal of time for the webteam, but also allow Newmarket to re-syndicate its race information easily; a must have for their avid collection of race goers and enthusiasts.

We also integrated the RacingUK video player that allows website visitors to view video feeds of the races at Newmarket courtesy of RacingUK.

Kicking off the project, we created a new digital strategy for the charity, concentrating on impact, raising awareness and positioning Children's Hospices UK as an organisation that provides essential support to children's hospices' care delivery on the ground.

These themes were used as the basis for creating a new information architecture, templates and designs. A good example of where this change can be seen is in the health professionals' area, which is no longer hidden away on the Children's Hospices staff extranet; it is fully integrated with the main site which will help to promote best practice.

The new design is uncluttered yet colourful, harnessing their brand and identity in a far fresher and clearer way than previously. It was crucial that the site communicated that this organisation is a children's charity. The appealing nature will engage with not only professionals but also potential donors - crucial in a challenging fundraising and economic climate.

The highly functional Umbraco CMS holds the website together. Its ease of use and flexibility will enable the Children's Hospices UK team to make significant amends inhouse, keeping the site's content fresh and compelling.

Speaking about the new web site, Holly Willoughby, patron of Children's Hospices UK commented:

"The new-look Children's Hospices UK website will play such an important role in helping to raise awareness of the unique work of all the children's hospices across the UK."

Rachel Agars, digital media consultant at Precedent Perth, will be giving a talk entitled Web design projects for universities in the real world at 4pm on the 9th of March in the Kingfisher room. 

In this talk she will discuss the difficulties all universities face when embarking on a large website project including the engagement with a number of different faculties and campuses, getting buy-in from the ground up to senior stakeholders plus the challenge of multiple budgets, what is a comfortably phased approach, slow decision-making, bureaucratic red tape and internal politics.

Using university website examples she will look at how you can split up the different stages of a university project and how you involve a number of different stakeholders in schools and faculties as well as students and other staff. She will also talk about how to get buy-in from all these areas while not forgetting other important aspects such as the systems that are powering the backend of a university website(s).

Most importantly Rachel will help you to address an on-going issue where many university websites fall apart; as the budget and planning allocated to web projects usually only extends as far as the top 2 or 3 levels of the Information Architecture of a site, many large organisations believe that the rest of the website will magically fall into place by itself. It won't. We will tell you how you can fix this problem.