In the marketing business, deadlines are common. Tight deadlines are somewhat common. Extremely tight deadlines are usually avoided at all costs, but in the case of FORMO’s client Stokes Industries there was simply no option. The company had developed an extraordinary business opportunity – in Russia.

But rewind the story a bit, FORMO just recently started doing work for Stokes and had yet to really develop the materials necessary for a project of this magnitude. As a matter of fact we had yet to develop anything, we just started! Nonetheless, they needed help so we got together and considered the options for delivering materials to support their sales effort. Out of the FORMO archive we pulled the “blogazine”, an original FORMO developed magazine-style collateral piece that aggregates blog content & imagery to create a highly customized print piece. Secondly we hit on the idea of creating a companion Keynote (Powerpoint) to create a multi-slide presentation that would support and enhance the content in the blogazine. Oops, the clock has been ticking already, time lost, need to hustle. Oh, did I forget to say that we determined it would be very beneficial to Stokes if we could deliver the pieces either partially or fully translated into Russian?

Total timeline:  20 days from concept to delivery in Russia.

The team: Me, Aeron Myers, Alfred Hall, Wentworth Printing in Columbia, TranZlations in NJ and of course Stokes Industries.

The results:

1. A completely customized 12 page, color brochure (blogazine) with content written and specifically targeted for their potential client.
2. A 31 slide presentation complete with integrated imagery again with content that is both complimentary and an enhancement to the blogazine.
3. A fully complete article by article translation of the blogazine into Russian.
4. A fully complete version of the presentation entirely in English and a second version entirely in Russian.

20 days from concept to delivery

Even creating the illustrations

31 slides all in Russian

1. Analytics – Scour your analytics in minute detail. Understand the real strengths and weaknesses of your current site from the perspective of your Users (clients). Luxury marketing is niche marketing, applying broad generalizations about your discriminating clientele will fail.


2. Understand your users (audience) niche – What type of mobile device to they use, what will they use a year from now. What are they looking for in your site? How do you make it sticky and bring them back? Do you really know them? Do your personas reflect real knowledge about the audience and their online habits or simply base demographics.


3. Understand and aggressively employ great ideas in design – Pay attention to what is happening in web development and information architecture. Listen to the conversations and then apply the points to your project. Don’t rely simply on your own expertise but be humble enough to accept that you don’t have all the ideas, there are a lot of great thinkers out there talking about fascinating and relevant topics that can measurably improve your site, challenge conventional wisdom in your marketing team.


4. Visual comes last – If you get the strategy and architecture right, your site will perform very well. Visual design is important but it does not precede the absolute of getting the foundation right. A great building does not begin with a rendering, it begins with engineering and planning. Web Development is no different.


5. It’s all connected – The web is giant cobweb of information about your brand. Your job as a strategist is to find those connections and make logical sense of them. Your website should be at the center of this “cobweb” and your branding the silk that links it all together. Your site must seemlessly provide and connect to all of the content and related content chunks that exist in your brand’s universe.


The result: The site for the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club at Ambergris Cay that we launched last week in collaboration with our digital partners at {e} house studios.


Click here to visit The Turks & Caicos Sporting Club at Ambergris Cay

TryonPlaza.com

FORMO in conjunction with Blue Ion launched a new website for Tryon Plaza, an historic commercial office building project located in a near perfect location in uptown Charlotte, North Carolina. The Tryon Plaza Building is owned by our client The Simpson Organization of Atlanta, GA and is the second Simpson Project to be awarded to FORMO.

In rebuilding the site, FORMO approached The Simpson Organization with a very simple premise: generate sales leads for the building which had languished for over a year with very few sales leads. FORMO demonstrated that the opportunity lay in a new marketing strategy, not lamenting over economic conditions.

The problem in lead generation for Tryon Plaza was due to a stale and conventional marketing strategy. FORMO developed a new strategy based on extensive research of the existing owners and tenants in Tryon Plaza and then pushed that forward in a cloning strategy to find more prospects just like the current owners. As a result the strategy became centered on providing tools and straightforward information to entrepreneurial small business owners.

The launch of the site was timed to match the first of a series of Professional Entrepreneurial Events to be held in the beautiful conference facilities at Tryon Plaza.  Not coincidentally the first series was titled, “How to Grow your Business – Leasing or Buying your commercial space”. The Speaker, John Bly with The Charlotte-based accounting firm of Toler, Bly & Associates actually referenced and used the Lease-Buy Tool embedded in Tryon’s new website to demonstrate the inherent value and benefits for a small business to own their commercial space. A resounding and qualified endorsement of the technology and the strategy.

Check out the site, Tryon Plaza

From real estate developer perspective, marketing resources must produce directly measurable ROI.

We understand that as we are an in-house marketing company for a successful development company that remains highly active: DPS SPORTING CLUB DEVELOPMENT COMPANY.


In the current economic times, the conversation with potential prospects will simply not happen if you follow the same old agency strategies of big advertising, production marketing and template communications. The conversation with potential prospects is one to one and it initially takes place online where the prospect controls the space with the close button on their browser. The content therefore must engage the prospect and hold their attention. To do that it must be authentic and real. Its too easy for any of us to Google your project and find out “everything” about it from other sources. And we are all immune to advertising tag lines, manufactured copy and clearly staged photos in over-sized, expensive brochures. We simply ignore them. Think about how many ad messages you experienced last night watching television from your home. Do you recall any? Chances are that you don’t. You’re immune to them. In order for that strategy to work the Developer must devote massive resources, which is a viable strategy if you sell consumer products in a global marketplace but not for a struggling developer selling a niche product. The ROI is just not there anymore.


Still, I continue to be amazed at how many development firms remain trapped in their own marketing/advertising paradigm yet exhibit a very different behavior as individuals. When asked how they obtain information…the web. When asked how they research a product or service…the web. When asked the last time they called for information from an ad they saw in a magazine…they can’t recall.


The danger however is the “I’m an expert” reaction. “We need a new website.” Unfortunately that’s not necessarily the answer. If their “expert” opinion views the web as an electronic brochure or a digital means to shove ad copy down the prospect’s throat then the ROI will be low.


The web is not the alternate path for the same old marketing strategy.

Neal Vohr is the interim General Manager at the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club. Neal also happens to be one of my neighbors. As such, I happen to know his family as well. So when he told me that his daughter Shelley was going to come down to Ambergris Cay for a month this summer as a “summer job” it naturally occured to me that Shelley was had just landed herself the Coolest Summer Job for any 13 year old. Since I already knew Shelley to be a delightful, charming young lady, I asked Neal if he would approve of Shelly blogging her experiences in the Coolest Summer Job.


Neal agreed and we set a date for Shelley to come in to FORMO for some training.


This week we launched Shelley’s Blog


Coolest Summer Job


From a marketing perspective, the results have been explosive. We simultaneously sent a press release to pitch the story to major national media, nearly all of whom immediately linked to Shelley’s blog. In short, the activity has been on fire. All thanks to a talented 13 year old! Shelley is awesome.

The FORMO team has just returned from a 4 day shoot in St Kitts for our client Christophe Harbour. The shoot was to collect material for a new website we are developing, set to launch in June. While the shoot was quite long ( I dont care to see the sunrise in St Kitts anytime soon ) it was very exciting and fun working in such a beautiful location. Technically we had a blast shooting in 4k with the RED and playing with the new video capabilities of the Cannon 5d Mark II. We will post footage soon!


PS: I also got a little time to shoot which was awesome

A throw back to the good ‘ole days of design school. I orchestrated a 2 hour charette for our production gurus along with F O R M O’s new Intern Intern (Angela) on Monday. Within that compressed time frame they were to concept new ideas for the DPS luxury  bags. The bags are a billboard for the brand and are utilized predominately in PR events to holster DPS property specific media such as books and brochures along with take-aways and gifts.

Afterwards, they posted their ideas onto the conference room wall and presented them to the entire team. I was very impressed and quite happy with the results. They questioned sizes, materials and colors and arrived at a range of ideas from complex and colorful to simple and elegant.  It warms my heart to know that a good charette still works wonderfully-Nice work!

Part of the joy of watching a digital strategy come to life is seeing how real people actually engage and interact with the work.

For our client Turks & Caicos Sporting Club we developed a blog and emagazine platform that has been incredibly successful. Not only has is generated significant sales leads, it has served as a wonderful central point for the members of this exclusive private island community to share their stories.

This morning a string of comments from the Deets family about Michael’s awesome birthday fish really made me smile.

You can view the post HERE.
How fun to see a family all applauding their son, and sharing the experience with one another online.

Check out all three of our Sporting Club clients blogs at:
Snake River Living
Life On The Cay
and
Life At The Greenbrier

In 2008 we completed a campaign to celebrate the launch of our client’s private 5700 ft jet strip (the longest in the Caribbean). The campaign began with the creation of an emblem for the airport itself. The emblem was inspired by the original wings worn by Frontier airlines’ pilots from the 1950′s and 60′s. The end result was a sleek and elegant mark that pays homage to those maverick pilots and reflects the contemporary aeronautics of today. In addition to their many other uses, the wings were cast in metal in order to create an original and authentic pilot’s wing pin for the prominent members of the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club.

For the invitation to the launch event, the wings were embossed and foil stamped in silver metallic ink on the cover. As you flip open the piece, you begin to see the markings of the Ambergris Cay Jet Strip on the interior. The invitation unfolds vertically downward revealing more of the jet strip panel by panel along with the copy describing the celebration of the jest strip opening. Once the invitation is completely open, the reader is able to view the scaled Ambergris Cay Jet Strip (MBAC) in its entirety. The length and dimension of the invitation were designed to highlight the magnitude and scale of this incredibly eco-engineered private jet strip.

The invitation was a complex print piece that needed to express quality, refinement, and luxury. The product exemplified this. Its paper stock was a thick, five star metallic sheet which was foil stamped on both sides. The interior carries a white foil stamp that mimics the jet strip’s markings while the copy is foil stamped in a metallic silver. The black of the airstrip was carried out with an aqueous coated oxidized ink. Inspired by aeronautical engineering, the packaging was composed of an elegant and chic, charcoal translucent envelope.

Other elements from this campaign included rich media and video ads exclusively placed at wsj.com/realestate and an email campaign. The initial launch campaign was followed by one of FORMO’s innovative VDM (Variable Direct Marketing) Campaigns. Think of it as a direct marketing campaign of 5000 pieces with 5000 unique pieces. Each piece designed specifically for one recipient. The visuals, copy and call to action are all specific to that person. Response rate was in excess of 30%, truly unheard of in most marketing circles. It’s why we refer to it as precision-guided marketing. For more information on FORMO’s VDM, click here

Amazing work by an amazing team!