2010 kicks off with a hiss and a roar for TOUCH/CAST. The agency recently relocated to new premises on Kent Terrace in Wellington, and bolstered it’s capacity with the addition of new Technical Director Nathan Perry. Nathan joins the team with a wealth of experience and expertise straight from the hustle and bustle of a top digital agency in Melbourne. Also joining him is a new project manager tasked with recruiting a crack intermediate designer; someone who loves to switch, serve and mesh the digital and real worlds together from a design perspective (any interested designers should submit their portfolio’s).
Over the holiday period TOUCH/CAST launched a brand new online platform for Weta Collectibles to promote the launch of it’s new Dr Grordborts graphic novel, Victory. Blast A Buffoon integrates with Facebook to enable would-be adventurers to blast their fellow mates to smithereens using a weapon from the Rayguns range.
The game mechanic ensures every ‘sharp-shooter’ has room for improvement, and so advises most participants to buy the book and study up on how to become an expert practitioner of scientific adventure violence.
Without any purchased media to promote the game, the interest and subsequent traffic has been strong to date, with avid fans crying out for the release of new weapons to try against their friends.
Following the creation of 2008’s Telecom Tree Microsite, TOUCH/CAST were tasked with creating a new online platform for 2009, but challenged to help take it to the next level in a way that rewarded consumer engagement.
Working with a passionate Telecom team, TOUCH/CAST created a new website that not only facilitated consumers Christmas wishes to Santa, but also enabled consumers to create their own animation sequence and send it directly to either of the giant trees in either Auckland or Wellington, where it would play across the streams of LED lights at a scheduled time; a feature that helped the initiative transcend digital and physical worlds to magnify it’s footprint across multiple touch points. To ensure consumers had a memento of their few minutes of fame on the Telecom Tree an automated camera system recorded the live sequence, then the websites database matches each user with their picture, and distributes directly to both the Telecom Tree website and a dedicated FLICKR page sorting by date and time for viewing.
For TOUCH/CAST’s technical lead on the site, Jamie Ferguson, it was an intense few weeks of development;
“The Telecom Tree was a challenging project from a technical perspective in regard to getting the ‘Design a tree’ functionality working. The designs had to travel between quite a number of different processes before finally ending up on the tree at the correct time. Matching up the designs from the website with the trees proved very complex, as we had to create the animations without knowing how they would actually look on the tree - but the team on location were great at taking our designs and recreating them to work on the trees themselves.’
TOUCH/CAST’s design team also had a huge part to play in the platforms success, making Andrew Hawley, CD and Managing Director very proud; ‘ Mark created a fantastic design solution end to end in record breaking time, with Martin and Jo working around the clock to stringing together the various FLASH components. A huge team effort!’
The sheer volume of pictures on FLICKR literally illustrates just how successful Telecoms Christmas campaign has been, and the number of wishes and submitted animations demonstrates how the engaging interactive platform drove this.
TOUCH/CAST were tasked with creating an online campaign to engage SME businesses and utilise Telecom’s partnership with NZherald.co.nz.
The creative solution comprised a series of online banners based around a competition to promote and reward those businesses using Telecom products. The promotion was entitled ‘Win a Banner’. It had a simple compelling engagement mechanic which included a series of banners inviting SME’s to register their details to be in to win a free banner to promote their business on the NZ Herald website.
The incentive was considerable; the winner getting their own banner conceptualised and produced by one of Telecom’s partner agency’s TOUCH/CAST, and placed, free of charge, for several weeks on nzherald.co.nz, exposing their business to tens of thousands of potential customers. To top it off, the winner would also have their business profiled as a video case study along with their thoughts and ideas session with TOUCH/CAST on the Telecom Business Hub Community website, the Herald website and on Youtube, The media exposure Telecom were offering their winner was considerable, magnifying most entrant’s footprint in the online world several times over.
The campaign received a great response, with many entries from a host of different business around the New Zealand, all keen to expose their business to the rest of the country and receive some of the industry’s best advise from Telecom and TOUCH/CAST on how they could best leverage the online banner medium to help them drive sales and awareness of their business.
Online fashion retailer, Mode 92 , was Novembers winner. Their resulting ad, an –in-banner product catalogue of their latest and greatest products, was designed to engage users and allow them to pre-shop without disrupting their online journey, minimising the time it takes to browse for something to purchase, allowing them to dive straight to something that interest them rather than landing amid a plethora of competing products. It was a timely execution, going live just in time to drive a spike in traffic to the new Mode 92 website;
Following on from the success of the November based campaign, TOUCH/CAST are now working on a second edition following a similar format early in the new year.
Contact’s new Online Home Check-up makes it easy for customers to work out how they can save money on their power bills by making improvements to the energy efficiency of their home.
“All a customer has to do is answer some simple questions about their home and energy use habits, and they receive instant, dynamic responses as they go, along with a tailored report generated at the end which shows them where they can make savings,” said Contact’s Retail General Manager, Jason Delamore.
“It is easier to use and more accurate than other power-savings calculators because the customer’s annual energy spend is automatically loaded when they log in,” he said.
Every Online Home Check-up savings report is unique, and identifies a range of immediate ways the customer can make energy savings and an indication of what those savings may be. It also identifies areas where they may want to consider making an investment to improve their energy efficiency over the long-term.
Customers can save and print their report so it’s easy to refer to, and they are also able to keep revisiting it online to recalculate savings as they make changes to their home or their behaviour.
“At Contact we are committed to helping our customers have better control over their energy usage as a means of managing their energy costs. In many households, making simple changes such as reducing the frequency of appliance use can add up to a significant annual saving,” Mr Delamore said. “As well as the benefit to customers of identifying potential bill savings, the tool’s promotion of energy efficiency also has wider environmental benefits.”
Contact examined international best practice examples of similar online tools before determining how theirs should be designed and built.
“From a technical perspective, we believe that we have really pushed this type of energy savings calculator to the next level in New Zealand,” said Mr Delamore.
Contact worked closely with expert partners Touch/Cast Next and Core Technology to develop the Online Home Check-up.
“Effective teamwork amongst the project partners has been a critical factor in the success of this project. Although the tool is very simple and intuitive to use, the logic and systems behind it are anything but, so it’s been a highly successful project from a development point of view. It’s really satisfying to see this new tool in action on Contact’s website,” said Touch/Cast Next Creative Director Andrew Hawley.
Contact’s Online Home Check-up calculates potential energy savings based on the BRANZ Household Energy End-Use Project 2006. This was a long-term study that measured and modelled the way energy is used in New Zealand households.
Contact customers who are already registered for online services can access the Home Check-up now by logging in at www.contactenergy.co.nz/homecheckup
Contact customers who wish to register for online services can do so online at www.contactenergy.co.nz with their account and ICP numbers, which are noted on the monthly bill.
