Combining the Sitecore CMS with Intelligent UX

Not-for-profit managed care organization BMCHP had two main goals for their redesign: they needed to make it easier for the uninsured to self-select the best subsidized health insurance plan for themselves and their families and debut a new, commercial insurance product aimed at small businesses and brokers.

How We Helped

Genuine biggest challenge in drafting BMCHP’s new look would be to clearly articulate differences between the not-for-profit’s three health insurance product lines—MassHealth, Commonwealth Care, and Employer Choice. The new look is friendly, clean, and straightforward and uses human photography to help users identify with each product, making the integration of BMCHP’s new Employer Choice / Commonwealth Choice insurance for small businesses seamless.

Central to managing the user’s clickstream was the development of the BMCHP Eligibility Quiz, which serves as a virtual guide for the uninsured who want to become educated about the complexities of subsidized health insurance. Instead of trekking to the BMCHP medical center or sifting through the state’s lengthy eligibility requirements on paper, users can click through the Eligibility Quiz and determine which of BMCHP’s insurance products meets their needs by simply answering a few questions.

From Spectator to Subscriber: Driving Out-of-Market Sales

Always on the lookout for new sales drivers, DirecTV wanted to improve its annual NFL Sunday Ticket giveaway platform, Ultimate Displaced Fan (UDF). The satellite TV provider caters to existing and prospective out-of-market subscribers through its exclusive NFL Football Package, which provides a plethora of enhanced football content in a device-agnostic framework.  Genuine’s challenge was to boost sales for the NFL Football Package via the reinvented UDF platform.

How We Helped

The Ultimate Displaced Fan platform is a highly modular, PHP-based custom CMS that allows out-of-market NFL fans to sign up as contestants for the NFL Sunday Ticket contest. For the 2010 and 2011 iterations of UDF, we wanted to bring new life to the site’s look by making the platform more exciting for NFL fans. UDF’s administrative interface enables DirecTV and its PR affiliates to moderate and evaluate entries without leaving the site, while an array of voting features and Facebook integration tools on the front end enable contestants to rate entries based on quality and other criteria. From a systems perspective, we ensured that the UDF platform was built in such a way that DirecTV can reuse the CMS for campaigns from year to year by simply styling the front end.

Above and beyond UDF’s lead capture functionality, the platform is littered with analytics markers that enable Genuine’s Digital Media team to monitor performance and inform the strategy for future social media campaigns, such as DirecTV’s Quarterback Challenge and Snowballs of Flurry Facebook games.

2-Click Automated System Deployment

SurveySpot wanted to refresh the outdated look of their outdated survey website, as well as expand its functionality so that the website could function as a multi-instance application. Extracting value from SurveySpot’s audience involves seeking out and engaging with more and more narrow markets, so SurveySpot needed Genuine to extend their system so that it could deploy entirely new, consumer-facing instances of its front end all the while interfacing with a third party subscription database that stored consumer data.

How We Helped

By working with the Sitecore CMS in the .NET programming language and the VODCA framework, Genuine drafted a sophisticated integrations plan that involved hooking up the SurveySpot registration system with the brand’s existing third party repository for subscriptions. We designed the back end to rapidly sync with outside data sources while building multiple layers of system performance redundancy to handle the thousands of users whose interaction with the site could create crippling stresses on the entire system. Finally, we created an automated system deployment framework that allowed SurveySpot administrators to create new instances of the SurveySpot parent.

The end result was a two-click interface that made slicing up their consumer demographic a painless process. SurveySpot administrators can now deploy new instances of their survey collection website while sending all their data to the same centralized repository.

The Power of Science-Driven Care in Digital Formats

Children’s Hospital Boston wanted to showcase its science-driven care in a way that was more welcoming to parents and prospective employees. But this simple trajectory for the redesign meant a serious undertaking for Genuine Interactive. Children’s Hospital is not just one of the world’s leading pediatric hospitals, it’s one of the world’s leading research institutions producing inventions, drugs, instruments, and research that extend outside of the world of pediatrics, and so Genuine needed to capture the full scope of the hospital’s efforts in digital form.

How We Helped

Rather than focusing on building an online brand around the institution itself, Genuine turned its focus on the people within the organization who make it special.  We created a home page that features world-changing Children’s Hospital Boston inventors as well as their inventions in an XML-powered Flash carousel.  Our goal was to think about the site more as the cover of Time rather than the front page of your average website.

We also created the TIDO Invention Database to help Children’s Hospital keep its inventors and researchers fresh in the minds of venture capitalists.  The database opens a continuous line of communication between Children’s TIDO office and potential partners. This custom-developed application is designed to let partners easily search for inventions and researchers through a number of criteria. The active filtering allows the partner to change criteria and change results in real time.

Flash-Based Interactivity Boosts Micro-Donations
in Drupal-Powered CMS

Plimoth Plantation had an array of objectives when it came to the redesign of their museum’s website, chief among them to motivate micro-donations from younger donors, provide an educational resource for students and teachers, and enable visitors to plan their visit to the museum. To that end, Genuine’s strategy was to build a new appeal and interactivity into the micro-donation process.

How We Helped

Genuine selected Drupal as the CMS of choice for Plimoth’s new website. We wanted to immerse visitors in full-screen, panoramic photos and videos that would reflect the immersive experience that the museum’s theater of the past offered.

The Flash-based interactive donations page focused on illustrating ways visitors could help, from helping students “time travel to the 1600s” to keeping the “Mayflower II sailing into history.” Overall, the website’s clean new look and our slimmed-down IA allowed for a breadth of content that made it easier for visitors to find the information they needed quickly and without losing depth. By carrying over the site’s design into the museum’s Magento-powered shopping cart, we made eCommerce a seamless experience for visitors.

Drupal and Flash at the Crossroads of the Web/Video Convergence

In redesigning the MFA website, Genuine wanted to capture the sheer size of the museum and its extensive collections in the user experience. The MFA wanted their new website to reflect the very personal, awe-inspiring experience visitors of the museum share when interacting with its collections. We did this through powerful photography, engaging full-screen video, and a clean, navigable user interface that encouraged exploration.

How We Helped

The museum experience is an interactive experience, so user interaction was a big part of the redesign. On top of implementing a comprehensive search that enables visitors to access all the museum’s artwork online, we carefully categorized all the museum’s collections to make it easy for visitors to find artwork. We also empowered visitors to tag individual pieces, store collections in their My MFA Account, and share artwork with the social web.

Building a Digital Community Through Rebranding

LYSOL® wanted a new user experience that would reach beyond its product line and soften its harsh, germ-destroying messaging. Genuine’s rebranding effort would also need to interface with LYSOL’s® other marketing agencies in order to ensure the cohesiveness of its campaign. In our rebranding effort, we created a community of health-conscious moms to make it easier for consumers to connect with the brand.

How We Helped

In the redesign, Genuine used softer whites and blues and a flowing ribbon element in the header to make the site appear more welcoming. We incorporated lots of visual feedback in the site’s search functionality, a geographical cold and flu tracker so consumers could stay ahead of the cold and flu season, and a wealth of health, cleaning, and disinfecting tips in the site’s Healthy Families section.

The intended persona for the website was new and expectant health-conscious moms, so we had LYSOL® partner with well-credentialed health professionals to provide a forum-based community where visitors could ask cold and flu-related questions and receive real answers. LYSOL® also started its “Mission for Health” initiative, a philanthropic front which promotes healthy habits in schools, provides child-rearing advice for new moms, and works with Save the Children to create safe havens for children in disaster situations.

Simplicity in an Open Source Showcase: Enter Drupal

Massachusetts-based Tribe® Hummus needed a new look and new messaging to get across the value of its all natural hummus product. Genuine timed the launch of the site (which we built in popular open source platform Drupal) to follow up the release of their newest product, the Tribe Origins™ organic line, and chief among the goals in the redesign was to represent the product’s wholesome authenticity.

How We Helped

To establish a strong foundation for the brand’s digital presence, first Genuine needed to anchor the company’s social media properties in the website and build a community around its recipes.

We told the story of Tribe in vibrant summer colors, high quality product photography, and animations of the fresh ingredients that go into Tribe’s hummus. Tribe also wanted to showcase the passion of its senior management, who have extensive backgrounds in food prep and distribution. To this end, Genuine created an attractive Ask the Tribe Q&A that featured the staff’s stories.

Client Advocacy Through Immersive, Flash-Based Video Experiences

Development titan Gilbane wanted to give a human face to its corporate infrastructure that went beyond a simple showcase of its development projects. Genuine’s challenge was to build a portfolio with a breadth of content without losing Gilbane’s focus on prospects, current customers, and potential employees.

How We Helped

Genuine’s Motion team set the tone for Gilbane’s new look by engineering a radically dynamic, full-page flipbook experience in Flash. Each panel of the opening animation features stories from Gilbane employees on important corporate values, from client advocacy and sustainability to safety.

We wanted Gilbane’s new website to not only enrich the brand’s image with a bold visual design, but provide a consistent, easy-to-navigate user experience that put the emphasis on content. Users can browse Gilbane’s extensive project portfolio, which illustrates each project in an attractive photography-driven case study format.

Zend Framework and Social Media Integrations
Help Frank’s® Own Tailgaiting

King of hot sauces Frank’s® RedHot® was due for a complete re-envisioning of its web presence, and the company’s reputation as a beloved national supplier preceded it. Genuine’s task was to transform the brand’s aging web property into a shiny new hub for its social media efforts, mobile content, and engagement with its loyal fans. We created a new site from the ground up on top of the Zend framework, with integrations from Twitter, Facebook, and a custom database containing a wealth of RedHot® recipes.

How We Helped

Genuine’s lively new look captured the feeling of the brand’s “I put that sh*t on everything campaign” in front-and-center Flash video, which featured as its mascot the spunky (albeit fictional) septuagenarian “Ethel Herbert.” At the center of the redesign, we created an extensive database of Frank’s® RedHot® recipes from the brand’s celebrated product line that visitors can share with friends and family.

To open a more focused conversation with RedHot® fans, we engineered Twitter contests onsite and delivered an editorial calendar of Facebook conversations to drive leads. We also created a tailgaiting section devoted to usage tips for seasonal sports, and then tied that focus into our mobile efforts through a powerful Wing Finder App that enables visitors to locate wing restaurants across the country.

Increased Revenue Thru Organic SEO and Search/Display Advertising

During its “The Skinny on Mustard” marketing campaign, FRENCH’S® opened a dialogue with its consumers that required a central hub on the Web to facilitate the conversation. FRENCH’S® teamed up with Genuine to commit a big chunk of its media budget to online search and display advertising over two years. Genuine’s challenge was to make the most out of the massive traffic directed to the dotcom. Everything we did in the social media sphere needed to support the brand’s #1 objective: Get consumers to buy more product.

How We Helped

Through market research, we learned that 85% of moms who came to the site—a market that made up the largest slice of FRENCH’S® audience—were looking for recipes.  So Genuine created a community around the new recipe database with real-time search filtering capabilities and an emphasis on social sharing.

To support the concept of the all-American “FRENCH’S® kitchen,” we filmed FRENCH’S® own chefs cooking recipes and encouraged visitors to participate in the FRENCH’S® Cook-Off Recipe Contest, which gave away $25,000 to the first-prize winner. We also sought to improve recipe dissemination by drastically improving search results on Google for recipe entries and non-FRENCH’S® related searches.  Because organic SEO was a main strategy that guided site development and content creation, we created an SEO optimization plan that involved optimizing each of FRENCH’S® 2,000+ recipes individually.

Driving Ticket Sales Online Through Comprehensive Online Marketing

Boston Harbor Cruises had a lot of value to offer its customers, but zero visibility on the web and no way to drive ticket sales online. BHC’s colorful selection of sightseeing cruises needed powerful illustrations and a simple solution for customers to buy tickets. And above and beyond the scaffolding, the company needed a way to consistently drive traffic to the platform.

How We Helped

Genuine built a custom CMS based in .NET as a foundation for the agency’s comprehensive performance marketing campaign, which would ultimately cause BHC to rank in the top three for searches in its industry. We also put together a WordPress-powered mobile site to capture mobile leads, which accounted for 10% of all traffic. Our attractive design featured Flash-powered visuals of visitors on sightseeing cruises. We provided a wealth of information, such as schedule rates, concierge, and candid photo galleries of cruises.

At the same time, Genuine helped Boston Harbor Cruises establish a fan database so it could reap deep insights about its audience to further drive ticket sales.

UX Overhaul and Mastering Conversion Rates

Consumer packaged goods superpower RB Foods needed to restructure French’s Food Service, the umbrella website for its condiment brands. In addition to clearly delineating the benefits of each brand’s product line to restaurant operators while keeping navigation between brands simple, RB Foods sought to dynamically cross-promote its products and improve overall conversion rate.

How We Helped

Genuine started the French’s Food Service makeover by unifying the three brands’ separate websites under a single visual design that preserved the defining characteristics of each product line. We wanted to communicate the family friendly atmosphere of French’s Foods, the cheeky personality of Frank’s Red Hot, and the Western appeal of Cattlemen’s while keeping the user anchored in French’s Food Service’s overarching interface.

In the “Culinary Center,” we transformed the output of multiple existing recipe databases to suit the French’s Food Service restaurant operator audience, which included indicating values for bulk quantities and increased serving sizes, as well as adding the ability to filter by brand, menu type or type of protein. We made sure the product sample request forms were always one click away. In addition to information about front of house solutions and mixology, the new Merchandising and Rebates sections of the website allow operators to find multi-brand offers. Finally, we created a sales rep finder that enables restaurant operators to locate contact information local to their area.

Touch Screen Edutainment Enhances Learning

DIRECTV wanted a new way to train its 20,000 sales reps across the country. Historically, DIRECTV’s training sessions were just that—boring training sessions. Genuine knew that better-educated reps make for a better-educated consumer audience, especially since DIRECTV’s sales reps sell directly to consumers. Genuine had something entirely different in mind for spicing things up.

How We Helped

Traditional training is not entertaining. What DIRECTV needed was edutainment. Genuine’s mission was to create active participants out of bored, passive listeners: Our experience would get reps out of their seats with excitement and at the same time educate them about the best way to sell DIRECTV.

Live marketing specialist and Genuine partner IMG LIVE planned to conduct hundreds of these training sessions in person at DIRECTV training centers across the country.  Each training session needed to change based on the audience makeup, the time available for the session, and the needs of the center.  To that end, Genuine created an entertainment center for the emcee—a touch screen kiosk served up video vignettes of HBO and Showtime synopses and digital emcee counterparts who answered the real reps’ questions.

Combining Clean IA, Dynamic Search, and Pay-Per-Click

Because student-exchange nonprofit EF Foundation for Foreign Study established a solid reputation by pairing over 90,000 students with host families around the world, they wanted their new web presence to reflect the expansiveness of their efforts. Genuine set out to renew the site with a powerful pay-per-click campaign and educational videos that delve into the eclectic background of their multilingual staff.

How We Helped

Central to the redesign was our emphasis on organization and conciseness with respect to IA. We wanted to create an easy-to-use overview of students available in the system. To that end, we developed a dynamic search filter that allows users to search by student demographics and personal interests.

Each country page provides a wealth of regional data and a selection of subtitled videos presenting EF employees speaking in multiple languages. We also launched an extensive pay-per-click campaign to drive traffic to the new site.

WordPress  & Flash Set a Corporate Notion into Motion

InZone Brands wanted Genuine to create a visual representation of the company’s motto: “Meet us at the intersection of healthy and fun” for its three kid-friendly consumer product lines: BellyWashers, TummyTicklers, and TummyTickler Tots. With a splash of color and a set of powerful Flash animations, Genuine painted the picture for moms and kids alike.

How We Helped

InZone had a number of value propositions it needed to make clear to its consumers: that its products were designed to be exciting for kids, to make life easier for moms, and to provide a healthful alternative to high fructose corn syrup drinks with many artificial additives.

All of the brand’s websites were built on top of WordPress, making it easy for InZone to update content after the sites were launched. The opening Flash animation prominently featured InZone’s products in a fun animation that emphasized the products’ key features. To open a dialogue with the brand’s target audience—moms—we created video testimonials from real consumers, called attention to the products’ nutrition facts, and set up a photo gallery for moms to submit photos of their kids to the brand. In the “For Kids” section, InZone included coloring sheets and an archive of all its product toppers.

GPS Makes Search Anywhere via iPhone and WAP a Cinch

Genuine helps Camden go mobile by creating iPhone-specific and WAP versions of its tightly integrated search, as well as a convenient portal for current residents to make maintenance requests and pay rent via their phone.

How We Helped

We knew in the mobile design we’d need to maximize space for the properties’ visuals while preserving the brand aesthetic of the desktop website. We decided to use color and subtle navigational elements to help alleviate confusion for users and guide them through the app.

By utilizing GPS technology, Genuine was able to quickly deliver location-relevant apartment listings in a slim user interface. We focused on streamlining the search submission process by limiting search fields to only absolutely necessary items. Within the results listing, we provided users with efficient sorting options and reduced listing attributes to streamline comparison shopping.

Engineering Video Environments on Open Source Foundations

Indoor air-quality monitoring company Aircuity sought an agency who could translate the technical language in their product messaging into an unforgettable experience that visually demonstrated what their technology was all about. Genuine had a few tall-order ideas in mind.

How We Helped

Instead of laying out the effect of Aircuity’s technologies on infrastructure in two dimensions (as you’d expect from a two-dimensional website), we thought it’d make more sense to build Aircuity’s virtual infrastructure in three dimensions just like the real thing.

To that end, we deployed an interactive, 3D virtual city full of video testimonials that explained the benefits of Aircuity’s technology through a completely audiovisual experience. Add to this that all of the website’s content is fully customizable by Aircuity in WordPress, an easy-to-use content-management system for non-technical users.

Backing zNode with Targeted Paid Search Marketing

Walpole Woodworkers prided itself on its fine degree of control over the consumer lifecycle of its products, from manufacturing to point of sale to delivery. Genuine’s challenge was to provide the home goods supplier with a website that afforded the same level of control over online orders.

How We Helped

Genuine migrated Walpole off its old ColdFusion installation and installed popular eCommerce software zNode to interface with a third party database of over 2,000 of the company’s products. Our redesign featured a wealth of product photos and a faceted on-site search that enabled visitors to apply very specific filters to get targeted results.

Our Online Marketing team worked closely with development to set up a paid search marketing campaign that would take advantage of the site’s new search-engine friendly architecture.

Employee Recognition Captured in Immersive 3D

Tharpe Robbins’ unique position as the company for “managed recognition”—a business-to-business service that establishes programs for employee recognition—required a very unique creative approach, and Genuine was up to the challenge. We started with a single idea—that one act of appreciation can lead to a chain of positive results—and took off running.

How We Helped

TharpeRobbins didn’t want to be another boring B2B bloated with stock photos. Instead, they wanted a vibrant web presence with an uplifting image that matched the positive attitude with which they approached driving employee performance in their client’s businesses.

To that end, Genuine developed a Flash-powered 3D animation that opened with butterflies lifting their messaging into the skies. This butterfly effect became a powerful image behind the site’s messaging, which was reinforced by video of employee interviews and clean copy.

Goodbye Airfare, Hello Telepresence: Remote Video Presentations

Often, the end result of the convergence of the Web and video is edutainment, one of Genuine’s specialties. MassMutual enjoys a nationwide reach, but when it comes to flying over their prospects to experience a sales presentation in person, the reach can hurt with massive travel budgets. Enter Genuine and a 3D “Rotunda” project.

How We Helped

The Retirement Services team at MassMutual wanted to save money in travel expenses by creating a virtual visit microsite that contained an interactive, video-powered sales presentation. We headed on over to MassMutual’s headquarters, and filmed their staff in the company’s beautiful rotunda, which became the 360 centerpiece of the tool.

By clicking through the three-dimensional space, prospects can visit different halls in MassMutual and engage with virtual sales agents, who provide chaptered video presentations one-on-one with the user. The end result is a face-to-face experience with personalities from MassMutual from the privacy and security of your own office, without the bad airplane food or hassle of checked bags.

Improved Sales Through iPhone App Development

Frank’s® RedHot® wanted to drive product sales during its key seasons and saw an opportunity to provide utility to its fans. Frank’s® also needed to build its consumer database to enhance its reach to more specific niches within its market while providing a fun, interactive way to interact with the brand via mobile devices.

How We Helped

Genuine decided to build an iPhone app that would allow users to tag wing restaurants and bars that use Frank’s® RedHot®.Fans could invite friends from the app for wings, browse reviews about the locations, and use various filters to search. We also focused on providing sharable hot sauce recipes (18 wing recipes and 32 classic recipes) for key tailgating and sports seasons through the app.

Stem Cell Research Brought to Life through Engaging Stories

The Stem Cell Program at Children’s Hospital Boston had a mission unlike any institution in the world: Educate the public about the nature of stem cells while encouraging donations from visitors to fund research. Genuine sat down with Children’s stakeholders to design a content strategy that would corral the hospital’s library of data into web-ready chunks of content.

How We Helped

Genuine developed a content strategy to sieve out of a mountain of heavily technical articles a set of documents that would serve as an educational guide to laymen, concerning science of stem cells. Using WordPress as a CMS, we created a site that incorporates both emotional testimonials of stem cell patients in text and informative explanations of the nature of stem cell research by doctors in Flash-based video presentations. An XML-driven front page Flash carousel houses an engaging video introduction to the program.

In addition to the educational purpose of the website, the website was designed with strong “Give Today” calls-to-action to attract philanthropists to become benefactors of the project.

Driving Results with Comprehensive Search and Guided Navigation

Grand Circle Travel had attracted a large base of repeat customers with huge brand loyalty, but their existing website was not attractive, provided no way for customers to search for specific trips, and was difficult to navigate. Genuine’s challenge was to rebuild GCT from the ground up and to help travelers explore GCT’s amazing tours with ease.

How We Helped

Genuine’s first step was to zero in on GCT’s older demographic with usable IA and a powerful, comprehensive, site-wide search. Our extensive work on IA helped direct users to valuable information quickly, which increased sales and client engagement. As a result of the new website, GCT saw improvements in overall visits, an increase in time spent on the site, and an increase in returning visitors.

Twitter Trifecta: Social Media, Web, and Mobile Convergence

As part of their 2009 Valentine’s Day campaign, NECCO refreshed their Sweethearts candies with new flavors and colors, and wanted to showcase their updated product in an exciting new way. Genuine’s challenge was to create a fun iPhone app out of the convergence of social media, Web, and mobile. 

How We Helped

NECCO’s new iPhone app was one of the first on the iPhone market to directly integrate Twitter into its functionality. We enabled users to share a custom box of virtual sweethearts with their special someone, and then tweet the box to their friends.

The deceptively simple app had far-reaching effects and the campaign went viral. Twitter showcased NECCO Sweethearts in their App Store, celebrities like Ashley Judd and Vince Gill were tweeting their custom boxes, and the resulting usage metrics largely exceeded NECCO’s expectations.

Audience Segmentation from a Home Page Ain’t Easy

Serving multiple audiences with very different goals can create a home page “turf war,” where different segments of companies engage in mortal combat for that valuable front-page real estate.  Genuine didn’t want the outcome of this struggle to result in a home page jammed with irrelevant content, busy call outs, and house ads, because the impact on usability would be a high bounce rate due to the confused user’s divided attention.

How We Helped

Careful research was central in redesigning ASA’s website. In order to rebrand ASA, Genuine had to fully understand ASA’s audience, their fears, and their motivations. We knew this would involve cultivating deep insights about ASA’s audience through user testing and persona development.

Genuine partnered with Bentley University to survey 100,000+ students with educational loans while conducting focus groups and running usability tests in order to develop new, user-friendly IA. In order to help the user self-select and dig deeper into the site, we created an innovative quiz that immediately seized control of that coveted first-click. In a few seconds, the user self identifies in an engaging fashion and is delivered to the internal page based on their user goals and persona. We transformed ASA into a warm, helpful guide for students struggling with loan debt by directing the site’s content strategy and reorganization. The end result was a comprehensive wealth of well-organized information architecture.

Superefficiency in Search: LINQ-Based Filtering via Cached Datasets

Sullivan Tire needed two key features to succeed on the Web: a powerful online pricing and lead generation tool, and a more robust method for searching for tires online. Genuine also saw an opportunity to strengthen the tire company’s web presence through enhanced online marketing.

How We Helped

Just as Sullivan Tire’s needs were twofold, Genuine’s approach was two-pronged: We provided an engaging and creative new interface for the end user while building powerful integrations in the back end. We featured an interactive, Flash-based, behind-the-wheel front page design and streamlined navigation to guide the user seamlessly from point of origin to intended destination.

Behind the scenes, we optimized Sullivan’s tire search functionality to improve speed and efficiency, while creating an online tool that provides a tire diagnosis in real time. Our back-end developers created a LINQ-based searching and filtering module that queried a cached dataset in .NET which we parsed nightly into an XML dataset. Our goal was to cater to users’ needs by minimizing distractions and maximizing usability through carefully designed site architecture.

Bing, RentWiki, & Flash Converge to Power Real Estate Search

Camden had two goals in launching CamdenLiving: to showcase their property portfolio and to attract prospective employees to join a company culture Camden prides itself on. Genuine saw the two aims as not only congruent, but complementary.

How We Helped

Camden’s deep appreciation for its employees and its emphasis on a strong company culture were key values around which the company wanted to build its web presence. But Camden also had to serve its primary audience at the same time: apartment hunters looking for a place to live.

To balance these goals, Genuine created a friendly, easy-to-navigate site powered by Flash-based maps and the Bing search engine. The simple, yet powerful apartment search feature makes drilling down to individual listings a matter of three clicks. We enhanced each listing with photo galleries, neighborhood overviews powered by RentWiki, and extensive floorplans, leaving nothing to be desired. And to top it all off, Camden is 508 compliant, making surfing the website for visitors with accessibility needs a breeze.

Bing Maps, WordPress 3, and Intuitive UX: Smart and Simple

Compass wanted to come across to renters as welcoming, easy-to-navigate, and friendly; as a small luxury apartment company with a good customer relationships, Compass already had the track record but lacked the web presence to showcase it. Genuine’s goal in redesigning the company’s website was to tease out Compass’ true nature through a digital makeover.

How We Helped

Genuine made Compass stand out from its competition in several key ways: We built the apartment search feature so that prospective tenants could find properties in only a few clicks, we chose autumnal colors for the visual design to suggest an inviting environment, and we incorporated a wealth of useful information at the property level that answered questions before they were asked.

Chief among these property-level features were extensive photo galleries for each property and Bing Maps-powered neighborhood amenities. We wanted users to feel at home just by visiting Compass’ properties, the information contained within which were each carefully tailored by the company to maximize utility for the end user.

YouTube & Drupal Combine to Generate Living Catalog of Music

The New England Conservatory wanted to generate buzz for the university’s brand by defying its image as a strictly conservative and traditional school of music. NEC’s target audience included current and prospective students, alumni, and NEC concert-goers who share an intimate relationship with the culture of the university.

How We Helped

To showcase student talent, Genuine created NEC# (“NEC Sharp”), a virtual orchestra that displayed a curated collection of YouTube clips featuring students playing their favorite musical instruments. The site was developed in open source CMS Drupal so that NEC administrators could easily manage user-generated content. Visitors are able to play the videos in the collection in any order, creating a unique experience for every visit.

Immersive Video Experiences Through Flash-Based 3D Architecture

Creat Studios wanted to revamp their brand with a portfolio that showcased their creativity and passion for creating digitally immersive games. They also wanted to foster social networking and video-sharing to enhance the experience for clients and extend their reach to potential employees.

How We Helped

Genuine created a powerful 3D wheel of games through a combination of Flash wizardry and Papervision3D as the initial front page experience. Visitors could select titles from this 3D wall of games to dive directly into Creat’s portfolio.

Individual titles in the portfolio have sharable widescreen video and interrelated title recommendations, which encourages users to further explore the site. Genuine also devoted a good portion of the website’s infrastructure to detailed team profiles and an in-depth company overview, so as to attract prospective hires to consider working at Creat Studios.

Driving Leads with Flash-Based 3D Architecture

3DVIA needed a way to build leads to promote their 3D rendering software as a fast new tool for developers attending an upcoming gaming conference. Your everyday contact form wasn’t going to suffice for 3DVIA’s tech-savvy audience, so they called on Genuine to design an engaging microsite.

How We Helped

Genuine helped the brand signify “fast.” So fast—in fact—that the two actors build the site right before your eyes. The Find Your Fast microsite constructs itself around a green-screened video subject to reinforce the central concept of speed and performance specific to the brand’s product.

Genuine overcame a number of production challenges during the filming, but the end result showcases the lifelike 3D performance of 3DVIA’s product in a fluid, Flash-based environment. Due to the high level of interaction encouraged by the immersive environment, we captured over six times as many leads than anticipated.

Digital Urbania and the Speed of Life in Motion

New England developer Samuel & Associates describes Fenway Triangle as a “stylish, energetic neighborhood” with an eclectic array of hip must-haves for Boston urbanites. Genuine’s challenge was to capture the energy and excitement of the neighborhood’s fast-paced lifestyle and translate that into an engaging Web-based experience.

How We Helped

One of Genuine’s trademark approaches to rendering lifelike digital experiences is rooted in the convergence of the Web and video. Genuine’s Motion team used Flash to generate a fully immersive digital environment rich with video footage from the Fenway Triangle community.

We also incorporated frenetic, asymmetrical geometries into the website’s visual design to simulate a sense of excitement. And central to the experience is the website’s neighborhood video tour, which features the wide variety of personalities residents may encounter at Fenway Triangle, from doctors to hair stylists to Red Sox all-star pitcher Jonathan Papelbon.

How We Reduced Acquisition Costs by Turning
“Lead” Leads into “Gold” Traffic

MassMutual wanted to drive new applicants to a careers microsite, which it commissioned Genuine to build. But with the insurance giant’s nationwide reach, driving quality traffic was central to the campaign’s success, so Genuine decided to add a personal touch to the experience that would captivate many different audiences pursuing different careers in financial services.

How We Helped

Genuine’s Online Marketing team created an extensive, geographically targeted marketing campaign across all major search engines, which included paid search and banner ads.

In order to funnel quality leads into submitting their resumes through the careers site, we filmed real financial services professionals telling their story, and then integrated the video into an interactive carousel of agents on the microsite. The dimension of sincerity added to the campaign by these unscripted personal experiences in the field contribute hugely to the campaign’s success, which ultimately increased total quarterly resume submissions while reducing the cost per resume acquisition.