Become a Brand Sponge

Originally published in “Graphic Define Magazine“

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For the past 10 years, Firstborn, the company where I’m executive vice president, has had the privilege of working on digital projects for myriad high-profile brands, including Reebok, Malibu Rum, Mini USA, Nationwide Insurance, Toyota, Fila, Porsche, Microsoft, JBL, Smirnoff Vodka, Thomas Edison Foundation, McGraw Hill, and Borders. In addition to our high level of design and technology capabilities, one of the reasons we’ve been so successful the past decade is our ability to translate our client’s brand in the digital space no matter what they’re selling.
Your phone rings. It’s Joe’s Bar & Grill. They want you to design their Web site. Time to dive right into design, right? Wrong. The first step is to go down to Joe’s, have a meal, take in the atmosphere, talk to the patrons and the staff, look at all the print materials they’re using, and generally ask yourself what is this place all about and how can I deduct the cost of dinner there from my taxes.
The point here is that you’re not trying to re-invent Joe’s Bar & Grill. The owners probably invested a lot of time and money into building the business. Your job is to figure out how that existing business can best be represented on the Web in a way that’s consistent with everything that makes up Joe’s.
When Firstborn gets hired for a job, an identity is already in place for a particular product or service. I’m not just talking about a logo and a color palette, but the message of what the brand stands for. So before we can even think about starting design, we must understand this message in the context of the problem we are hired to solve. In the case of Joe’s Bar & Grill, you must ask yourself, what’s the purpose of the Web site? Is it to get more customers? Allow people to place orders online? Promote the place as a wedding venue? Allow people to post reviews of their meals?
What we’re talking about here is what we call discovery. Each project, to some degree or another, begins with the examination of the business, creative, and technical requirements of the project.
The Atlantis Resort & Casino in Paradise Island, Bahamas, is a much larger operation than Joe’s Bar & Grill and required a fairly in-depth discovery process. The resort’s parent company, Kerzner International, came to us to do a major facelift to their customer-facing Web site. It was a massive assignment for a destination that had over 2,000 rooms, 20 different restaurants, and tons of information.
Where do we start?
Our production team visited Kerzner both in their corporate Miami office and at Atlantis — I know, a tough assignment — where we got a sense of the Atlantis experience and interviewed key stakeholders in numerous departments to understand how they do their job and what the Web site needed to do for them. At the end, of it we came away with a thorough requirements and specifications document that we used as the project’s blueprint. Now we could design. The final result was an all-Flash experience that communicated the myth of the lost city of Atlantis with its wonders of the sea while at the same time organizing a boatload of content in a way that allowed people to easily find the information they’re looking for (Figure 1).

Figure 1.
If you’re really dedicated about immersing yourself in the Joe’s Bar & Grill experience and you’ve once worked as a waiter, you might want to consider working a shift or two there. Think Firstborn would never go that far? Well, let me tell you about the time we become shoe salesmen.
Fila challenged us to create a kiosk where people can get their feet scanned, and, based on the contours and shape of their foot, Fila puts together a custom-fitted shoe. The customers can then enter in information through a Flash touch screen interface and get cards they can swipe in scanners at other locations, as well as visit the Web site and order more shoes online without ever worrying about the shoe not fitting.
What did Firstborn know about shoes and fitting them?
Fila wasn’t looking for a company that specialized in foot scanning projects; they were looking for an interactive firm that thought out of the box and could get the job done. Firstborn had never done anything like this before. But we took on the challenge and over the course of the yearlong project, we utilized technology and Flash to develop the kiosk interface and backend system in a very unique way (Figure 2).

Figure 2.
Talk about brand immersion — when we were ready to test the system, our development team went to Fila’s flagship Madison Avenue store and our crew literally sold shoes to customers to test the system. We literally became Fila employees. The project was a great success and has been rolled out all over the world.
The owner of Joe’s Bar & Grill — named, appropriately enough, Joe — spent a lot of time working on the design of his menu and wants a Web site that’s in synch with that and all his other print collateral.
At Firstborn, we’ve become accustomed to working with existing material and campaigns, particularly in the work we do for numerous full-service advertising agencies that already have the big idea in place. In these cases, our mission is to extend that idea into the digital realm in a way that’s consistent with the overall messaging.
McCann San Francisco asked us to produce a Web site in support of a campaign for Microsoft Forefront, an anti-virus product. The concept is that fighting off ninjas, aliens, spies, and zombies is easy; fending off hackers using Forefront is easier.
Firstborn was brought in at the beginning and translated the materials McCann was developing for the print campaign into a Web site that contained only video content, as opposed to the traditional static images and Flash animations.
Our team flew out to Los Angeles to supervise and help direct the high-definition green screen video shoot. The result is a site that enables people to have fun choosing slapstick video clips while reinforcing the brand message (Figure 3).

Figure 3.
Whether it’s Joe’s Bar & Grill, a vacation resort, a footwear brand, or a software company, finding out what your client is all about is the key to making a successful interactive experience that doesn’t just look good but speaks for the brand itself. Firstborn becomes experts with the brands we work with. We’ve become sponges and so should you.

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Kevin is Executive Vice President at Firstborn, a bi-coastal interactive design and technology shop.