The Challenge

How do you tell people you have THE best product to solve a big, and painful, problem of opening impossible-to-open plastic packages? Create a microsite around the documented phenomenon of wrap rage - the escalating frustration and anger when trying to open plastic packaging. Create and present unique characters and their own wrap rage stories - in audio - and you've got a recipe for success.

The Solution

cabedge flexed our best talents in this microsite:

Strategy/Concept

After much exploration (and tons of laughter), we tied the concept of wrap rage back to the product as "the prescription to this growing, and painful, phenomenon". Patient folders were created for interesting characters who told their stories of wrap rage while trying to open critical packages (at least they were critical to them - you'll have to listen for yourself to get it).

Design

The use of a physician prescription pad, patient folders, the office desk background, even the cup of coffee added to problem/prescription concept.

Photography

This was the fun part. In order to really communicate the effects of wrap rage, we had to SHOW the results of wrap rage on various impossible-to-open plastic packages. You'll see these throughout the site as you move through the personas. All of the images you see on the site, including the rotating OpenIt! tool were created in house.

Audio

In addition to the typical assets we create such as copy and photography, this microsite included audio clips from talented folks we know. The scripts and personas were all created by us, with our good friend Chris Haven and Haven Studios laying down the tracks, background effects, and final editing. These were also used as radio spots in targeted geographic regions, with resounding success to our Client.

Copywriting

Creating 5 different personas, with introductions and 60-second audio clips, was no small task. Thanks to the acting/playwrite/performance experience of our copywriter, he was easily able to get into character to create wrap rage dialogues that were on target, and fun. Name, age, occupation, scripts, all created in house by cabedge.

Flash Development

From time to time, the best way to get a website to really prove a point is to use Flash. The movement of this site really enhances the interactivity, and users spend a great deal of time on the site just exploring and listening to the audio spots, not to mention playing with a 360 degree view of the OpenIt! tool.

Solutions/Results

We not only received a Gold Addy award for this site, but the Client garnered national recognition in several regional publications as well. The radio spots pushed significant web traffic, with users submitting their own wrap rage stories to win free OpenIt! tools.

The Challenge:

Bell & Associates has built buildings and roads for more than 40 years. Throughout the years, Bell has communicated their achievements to their clients and contacts through a printed newsletter. With each year the design and the message evolved, and even the contact list grew, but how many people were reading their newsletter?

The Solution:

So the guys at Bell came to cabedge for help with communicating quickly and efficiently to their clients. We developed an e-newsletter called www.balpnews.com that allowed the Bell team to update stories daily, weekly, monthly, or whenever they wanted. We also created a user friendly CMS tool to allow them to easily flow in the headline, photo and news content, along with a branded email that could be sent out and tracked alerting all readers each time the e-news was updated. Since that time, Bell has received outstanding feedback from their readers as their open rate exceeds 40% with each updated newsletter, and they have even seen an increase in traffic on their company web site, www.balp.com.

The Challenge:

When you think of the Hutton Hotel and 1808 Grille in Nashville, you think of luxurious rooms and exceptional dining, right? Good, that means they're doing their job and we're doing ours. But with a new brand, this was not immediate. This took the staff delivering great service and and an exceptional product. Hutton Hotel and 1808 Grille (dining located on the first floor of the hotel) are in their first year of business and as a boutique hotel and restaurant with no other locations the need to reach out to new customers was a must.

The Solution:

cabedge developed a social media and email marketing messaging campaign that outlined everything the hotel and restaurant were doing that was different and right in Nashville. From its green elements to its one of a kind wine tastings and events, to its high-tech showers to key access lighting, this hot spot was taking the locals and Music City visitors to new levels. We also took the outstanding customer service that visitors were receiving and transitioned that to the web. With real time responses to questions and appreciation of customer feedback, Hutton and 1808 Grille took communication to the next level, and the numbers of fans, followers and feedback were there to prove it.

The Challenge:

FirstBank, located in more than 30 locations in Tennessee, came to us with a great question. How many people are on Facebook in Tennessee? Answer- roughly 1.2 million. Second question- how do we reach them? In a big sea of people to reach, the proper campaign can find and target your audience.

The Solution:

cabedge created a Titans Tailgate Experience sweepstakes. We developed a prize package that any Tennessean would love, tickets to the Titans vs. Rams game, a primo tailgating spot with great food, music, games and fun, and even a warm-up tailgate a week before the game at the winner's place of business so they could share their winnings with their fellow employees.

FirstBank Facebook fans increased by 400%, and the current email database grew by 5%. Most importantly, FirstBank was given a great avenue to meet face-to-face with current and potential customers, and spend some quality time with those who matter most.

The Challenge:

Master Grinding Services, Inc. is a knife sharpening service located in Rockaway, NJ. After completing their web site, along with two additional web sites for their two product lines, KnifePro and KnifeSpa, the client came to us with a very direct request: tell the consumer market about our brand. KnifePro, a commercial grade knife collection, and KnifeSpa a consumer knife sharpening service, both fit the "home chef" market as KnifePro knives are ultra sharp and precise, and KnifeSpa keeps them sharp.

The Solution:

Where can you find consumers who want to know how to cook, and want to use the best tools for the job? On the Food Network! cabedge contacted the Food Network and within no time, had negotiated a deal for KnifePro to be the official cutlery sponsor of the New York City Food Network Wine and Food Festival. Also, as an added bonus, while in New York, we scheduled a media tour where we met with Fitness Magazine, Maxim Magazine and Good Housekeeping.

KnifePro and KnifeSpa sales are increasing daily and web traffic has gone off the scale. What once was a site that had a few visits per week, now is a site with thousands of visitors each month. We have even gotten the attention of Paula Deen as KnifePro was featured in her Collectors Edition of Quick and Easy Meals.

The Challenge:

Morton's The Steakhouse came to cabedge with a request. No it wasn't for our best cabbage soup recipe. They asked us to help them reach out to our Bar 12-21 customer. Everyone knows Morton's for their fine dining atmosphere and exceptional menu, but what about Bar 12-21? Bar 12-21 (12-21 stands for their anniversary of December 21) is a casual dining experience and neighborhood bar that features the complete menu from the dining room, or the Bar Bites menu that includes mini prime cheeseburgers, crab and artichoke dip and mini filet sandwiches.

The Solution:

Cabedge created a strategy that involved some of Nashville's biggest hitters reaching out to their contacts and telling them about 12-21. Boswell's Harley Davidson, CAO Cigars, Yazoo Beer and the Make A Wish Foundation joined Morton's to create the first annual Ride for Wishes.

More than 100 business professionals came out with their Harley's and participated in a scenic ride from Boswell's HD in downtown Nashville, through River Road to Ashland City and ended at the gorgeous CAO Cigars Headquarters off of Briley Parkway. At CAO, Morton's Executive Chef and staff greeted the riders and their guests with Bar 12-21 menu items, great give-aways, CAO Cigars, and Yazoo.

The 2nd annual Ride For Wishes is already scheduled for September 11, 2010.

The Challenge:

Information overload: when one website just won't do

CCA is big, really big. Their parent website alone has hundreds of pages. Before they came to us, the content organization was difficult for users and frustrating for CCA personnel. Plus, since they get hundreds of job applications each day, they needed a greater focus on using the website as a job application tool. Managing copywriting, assets, job applications and even vendor relations became quite a headache for CCA.

The Answer:

Information Architecture

Our first point of action was to help our client get a handle on what content existed, and whether or not it was still relevant. Creating a comprehensive site map allowed us to determine a logical organization for everything.

We also realized that creating multiple sites would help greatly by allowing critical messages and topics to be self-contained and easily found by the right audience.
To date, we've created 3 sites for CCA, with still more to come: correctionscorp.com, insidecca.com, and ccacommunities.com. The multiple sites also helped us implement part of an important SEO strategy they greatly needed.

Content management contained

With such a large body of content that's always growing, CCA has multiple people who need to access and edit content. We created a very user-friendly admin that allows multiple users with variable levels of access to edit the site. Written copy, photos and even videos are easily stored and managed through a main database.

Points of pain relief

InsideCCA is a great example of how we eased a point of pain for our client. With print publishing costs increasing and the information flow more time sensitive, CCA wanted to take two hardcopy newsletters online. More importantly, they wanted to leverage the interactivity of the web to post videos, get user feedback, as well as create polls, photo galleries, and publish articles on demand.

Insidecca.com is a living, breathing example of a dynamic website totally managed through our website administration tool, Silo. It can handle everything from the polls to posting photos and videos and publishing articles in multiple categories. CCA can now publish more content more often and have a robust archive of valuable content searchable by category or keyword. Their search engine "findability" has been greatly enhanced by having top-notch content indexed and searchable by Google.

We also helped them develop an online job application process. CCA is pretty serious about who they hire for their correctional facilities. Now, their extensive application process is online with all information stored in a secure database. The online application application even helps "score" submissions to speed the process of selection. Both prospective applicants and CCA Human Resources personnel have a much easier experience thanks to an easy-to-use online process.

We've even got more CCA sites in the works. To date, we've built 3 sites for CCA: correctionscorp.com, insidecca.com, and ccacommunities.com.

Special Skills:

While every cabedge project generally involves most or all of our areas of expertise, we did flex our muscles in a couple of key areas.

Project Management

Our resident "unsung heroes", project managers are often overlooked. They manage every job that comes though cabedge, but with CCA their contributions can't go overlooked. It was their ability to collaborate and provide sound strategy to our client that truly allowed us to find the right answers. CCA is a large organization with many decision-makers. Our project managers have developed a close working relationship with CCA, and make sure everyone gets the information and answers they need.

Development

This project, more than most, is like an iceberg. So much more is below the surface than most people see. With hundreds of assets and more pages than you'd care to count, the administrative back-end of the CCA sites work smoothly and is easily used by both cabedge folks and CCA personnel. With this project we truly appreciate the creativity involved with development and coding.

The Challenge:

Brite Entertainment had a unique idea of combining new music downloads and philanthropy into a new service: Brite Revolution. Many businesses need a web presence as the communications hub of offline business. Brite's business is their website.

Their users needed to be able to sample songs, subscribe to the service and download media files on a regular basis. The client needed the ability to upload the files, schedule release dates, add new artists, and manage dozens of other backend functions of the site in an easy, non-techie way.

Oh, and they also wanted their audience to discover their new service in the first place.

The Answer:

Messaging and user experience

The folks at Brite had a solid grasp of their goals when they came to us. We spent time learning about their philosophy and needs and helped them form their corporate identity. Along with a logo, we presented a palette of colors, design aesthetics, and samples of written copy to establish their voice and approach. Once decided, the rest moved much quicker.

Content development and design worked closely together on this one. The user experience was created with extensive wireframing to make sure every functional detail was present. We wrote copy that quickly revealed their philosophy and the benefits of Brite Revolution to users. Using the wireframes and content as guides, our designers created a user interface that fit the style of Brite and made it easy for users to get what they needed.

User friendly in front and back

Every function of a website needs to work well, regardless of what it is. But, the music player and downloads, as well as the registration process, were especially critical on this project. The music player ended up being a combination of Javascript and Flash files. Not only did it work smoothly, but the song titles and artist names are now visible to Google and other search engines. The ecommerce engine allows users to securely enter their information, choose a charity to support and start downloading tunes after just a few screens in minutes.

The client also needed to manage the music, subscribers, and all content on a daily basis without the need of a third party. Our developers created a backend just as intuitive as the front end. After all, clients are users too.

The need to tell others to help others

Fortunately, the launch was incredibly smooth; they had their first subscriber, literally, within minutes. Now, the challenge is to tell the world. This is where our publicity team gets to work. Making strategic media contacts, creating Brite Bubbles to pass out at events and even planning a few events of our own is just the beginning. Brite wants to change the music industry and increase charitable giving at the same time and people are responding with great enthusiasm. The benefits of their service are obvious to others; all we're doing now is getting them connected to an audience ready and willing for the Revolution.