Box Tops for Education
From clipping boxes to celebrating schools
Throughout the course of our decade long relationship, schools have earned over $445 million from General Mills' Box Tops for Education program. As the lead digital agency on Box Tops, ideapark has been there at every step, bringing the program to life online and dreaming up new ways to engage families. From web to email to contests and promotional tools, our work has helped keep Box Tops an engaging program.
Showcasing the brand
The purpose of any website is to engage, educate, and encourage interaction. Box Tops has a multitude of components, including over 200 brands, each of which need to be included in a coherent and easy-to-use interactive experience. From content strategy to final design, ideapark uses a flexible, yet well-structured, approach to find communications solutions for this large and constantly evolving program.
Communicating with the audience
Email is one of the primary tools used to communicate with Box Tops supporters, giving them updates on their Box Tops earnings progress and encouraging program participation during key seasons such as back-to-school, return-to-school and holiday. Keeping the message relevant to subscribers while also accomplishing the communications needs of the program and its many participating brands is the kind of balancing act ideapark does best.
Creating customized promotions
Contests, sweepstakes and promotions are a fun way for school supporters to stay engaged with the brand while getting a chance to win extra cash for their school. From initial concept to final design, ideapark works with both Box Tops and its participating brands to create customized landing pages and creative elements for these Bonus Box Tops giveaways. We regularly welcome and meet the challenge of intertwining individual brand messaging with Box Tops style.
Designing marketing materials
The foundation of the Box Tops program is a passionate group of school volunteers. These Box Tops Coordinators not only promote the program but also count the clipped Box Tops and submit them for redemption to General Mills. Our deep understanding of Box Tops and our ability to present detailed information in a clear, user-friendly way allows us engage these advocates: we design numerous pieces of direct mail and flyers directed towards Box Tops Coordinators, school principals and bilingual schools, including the annual Coordinator Kit – an engaging and inspiring companion to the Box Tops website.
Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy
The truth is out there
Solving a big, hairy branding problem.
When you're serious about Bigfoot, not everyone takes you seriously. But for the non-profit Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy, staying credible is the difference between getting funded and calling it a day. So ideapark rebranded TBRC to shift the focus from the monster to the group's fascinating work. The result: a brand that opens doors and opens minds to ask, "what if?"
Visualizing the brand story
The new brand uses seductive photography that captures all the drama of a Discovery Channel special. Scientists are shown pursuing their ambitious fieldwork, countering supermarket tabloid stereotypes.
Building site flexibility
The site supports TBRC's unique vision with an innovative combination of open-source content management and custom development solutions.
Intregrating map technology
Decades of reported encounters, each investigated by TBRC team members, are presented through a clever integration with Google Maps.
Designing outside the computer
The group's annual and well-attended conference gives us a chance to design for web, print, outdoors and even spun cotton. This fun branded apparel makes it easy for anyone to join the cause.
Creating a brand on the go
The group's new iOS app, designed and developed by ideapark, is now on sale in the iTunes App Store.
Red Wing
Made for industrial-strength loyalty
Arguably the world's most respected bootmaker, Red Wing sells millions of pairs for every industry on every continent. Their secret? Putting themselves in the shoes of their hard-working clientele. ideapark extends this worker-first ethos to the digital realm: from a global procurement site built around your exact job and safety need, to email strategies that reward and celebrate real working men and women.
telling the brand story
Conveying the heritage or Red Wing Shoes is no small task. From the people who wore them to the town of Red Wing itself, there's no shortage of compelling content. Designing an experience that would do Red Wing's story justice was ideapark's charge. The result is a design that echoes the legacy of Red Wing and serves to tell the story of the legendary footwear that's been made by hand for over a hundred years.
Creating promotional templates
On the surface, the Shovel Ready sweepstakes site allowed site visitors to enter for a chance to win a pair of Red Wing boots. It also allowed Red Wing personnel the ability to administer the sweepstakes themselves. The real deliverable was a framework for sweepstakes and email collection that Red Wing can easily repurpose for future promotions.
Fine-tuning user experience
With an international reputation for safety wear that combines form and function, Red Wing needed a site that did the same. The Red Wing safety site serves the needs of a global audience by avoiding a one size fits all approach. From tools that help safety managers find and save collections, to content tailored to region, the Red Wing Safety site helps Safety Managers around the world protect their workers from head to toe.
Showcasing the brand
When designing the experience for the main Red Wing site, ideapark opted to put Red Wing Shoes products front and center where they belong. With minimal color and a clean interface, the site focuses on highlighting the boots that make the legend.
Building site flexibility
The challenge: Create a template-driven platform that will allow Red Wing stores to have their own presence on the web while retaining the integrity of the brand. Working on insight provided by store owners, ideapark designed a comprehensive solution complete with permission-based admin tools. Today, Red Wing store personnel have the ability to select and customize content ranging from product selection to coupons.
Stunt Puppy
Built from the dog up
Stunt Puppy is for people who like their gear like their pets: smart, active and ready for anything. The dog-lovers at ideapark groomed the brand from Day 1: Product design, identity, packaging, events, and a web/social presence that speaks to the savvy urban owner. Wisely managed Facebook advertising and cross-industry partnerships have attracted new enthusiasts by the thousands. Thus a homegrown brand makes it big.
Telling the brand story
The site not only serves as a home for direct to consumer sales, it also is a base to brew the brand and serve additional content such as highlighting the dogs that test the gear across the country.
Showcasing the brand
By providing a clean packaged display for retailers, Stunt Puppy can keep all of its products together in a family and deliver more information to the consumer at point-of-sale to increase conversion.
Creating packaging and iconography
A universal hangtag jacket serves as the wrapping for each of Stunt Puppy's unique product offerings. Each inner tag displays a system of iconography (visible from the outside) that explains distinct features for each product. These icons are also repeated in the display. Granimals for dogs? Who would of thunk it.
Inspiring product design
Tactile. It's not often that ideapark gets to as far as product design. From picking out materials to prototyping products, ideapark collaborates to bring the entire brand to life at every level.
Building a community
ideapark gives users a backstage pass to the Stunt Puppy world on a daily basis through Facebook and Twitter. We highlight Stunt Puppy's travel adventures, sponsored athletes and new developments in the canine world. You may call it community management, but we like to think of it as bringing the pack together.
Living With Dogs
True community, unleashed
Unite people around shared interests and the sharing just grows from there. That's one insight from Living With Dogs, ideapark's experiment in digital relationship marketing launched in 2010. A Facebook hub for advice, conversation and funny pet pics, LWD's fanbase has teemed to 20,000 fans in six months. It's proof that social affinity groups are as powerful as any brand. Next up: How can one help the other?
Creating a social experiment
Serving as a petri dish of sorts, ideapark likes to post what seem to be random questions to poke at the audience and see how they react. In fact, the content is more than random and the comments given (often many) give ideapark, more insight into the audience and help produce segments within.
Building a community
"How did you get that many likers in such a short time?" Friend-sponsored ads allowed ideapark to take a strong base of fans and exponentially build on that by targeting friends of current likers. The most powerful endorsement usually right next door (literally).
Join My Village
Click to care
Join My Village uplifts the lives of women and girls in Malawi. What makes the program unique is how you participate. Instead of asking for money, this corporate-funded campaign asks you only to pay attention to global poverty. By collecting and sharing tokens, you promote awareness of the problem as well as solutions. In its second year, ideapark's web and Facebook tools helped JMV followers make a $500,000 donation.
Building a community
In an era where everyone wants you to Like them, ideapark realized the true potential for engaging the audience and fostering more awareness for the cause. Today, a simple thumbs up for JMV equates to money for Malawi. Corporate funds are also donated for viewing, sharing and commenting on JMV content.
Telling the brand story
Illustrating the challenges facing girls in poverty may seem fairly straightforward. Creating enough emotion to get people to act is another matter. Knowing that words and pictures alone are not enough, ideapark produced the Girls in Poverty video, which takes the user beyond simple statistics and enables them to truly understand how important this issue is.
Fine-tuning user experience
Most people will make their decision about a site by spending only a few moments on the homepage. Confuse them and they're gone. The JMV homepage uses simple iconography to explain the impact users can have in a clear and concise manner. This iconography, accompanied by a clear call-to-action allows users to realize the importance of JMV and start making a difference immediately.
Using gamification
In a world where numerous causes compete for consumers' attention the challenge is how to stand out. To help drive ongoing engagement ideapark developed the JMV tokens. Each month users earn a new token - and generate funds for Malawi - simply by learning more about the cause. By gamifying social media, ideapark helps put a lighter tone on a serious subject.
Dunn Bros Coffee
The bold standard
Not "just another coffee shop," Dunn Bros is known as the coffee company for those who care. Setting a bold standard for flavor and quality, Dunn Bros custom-roasts its beans and prides itself in bringing local communities together..
Building a community
To engage Dunn Bros' social communities in productive dialog, we used our proprietary Topic Priority Schema (TPS) Report to determine what these consumers really want to talk about (and what they really don't). We also proactively monitor the Internet to see what people are saying about Dunn Bros day-to-day. Armed with this critical insight, ideapark manages the company's Facebook and Twitter communities 24 hours a day, with conversations ranging from promotion to customer service… and most importantly, coffee!
Building site flexibility
Although the websites for all Dunn Bros locations roll up into the mother brand site, we use a multi-user Wordpress installation to allow each shop to create customized, local messaging. This way, each location maintains an individual feel, while the corporate group manages aspects of the website overall.
General Mills Foundation
Nourishing lives in every sense.
Created in 1954, the General Mills Foundation has awarded more than a billion dollars to nonprofit organizations worldwide and inspired over 80% of all U.S. General Mills employees to volunteer. Through brand philanthropy, corporate contributions, foundation grants and product donations the General Mills Foundation strives to make a difference in the lives of thousands across the globe.
Building a community
General Mills Foundation gives out up to $10,000 in grants each week, due in part to the engagement of its active social community. By liking, clicking and responding to posts, fans and supporters can impact the donation amounts given to various initiatives. ideapark manages the Foundation's Facebook community 24 hours a day, starting conversations, responding to posts and sharing success stories.
Telling the brand story
The Foundation's annual "Report to the Community" highlights the beneficiaries of its grants and donations. In 2011, we produced a two-minute video version of the report, touted as "a cause video done right," that turned this corporate document into a fun, visual source of inspiration to share with the community.
Toro
Count on it.
The global leader in turf and landscape maintenance, Toro has helped homeowners and professionals care for their outdoor environment since 1914. From mowers to sprinklers, Toro has built its name and reputation by providing innovative solutions to customers' agricultural and turf care needs.
Showcasing the brand
To help Toro customers quickly find the information they need, we created a website with multiple layers of easily navigable content, ranging from basic product info to detailed technical features. During one of Toro's biggest product launches, the complete redesign of their Greensmowers line, we used an innovative solution to highlight specific mower features and benefits. We also layered analytics throughout the site in order to pinpoint which products are being viewed by which companies and pass this information along to Toro's sales channel.
our work
Over 17 years, we've had the pleasure of helping some remarkable organizations. From big consumer brands to non-profits, start-ups, and B2Bs-what they have in common are ideas people love and want to be part of. In fact, some of our favorite projects began just because we were fans.
A modern brand is an interactive brand
So long, "at you." We are squarely in the "with you" era. Marketing is now a friendly exchange between companies and customers. The mode is digital. The value is mutual. It's about earning attention and rewarding it, inviting your fans not only to consume, but also create. We call it digital relationship marketing. It takes many forms - web, email, games, social, environments. But for us, it boils down to one thing: branded experiences people love enough to share.
Down to the core
Contact
- 612.877.7620
- 612.877.7621
- 212 Third Ave N, Suite 440
Minneapolis, MN 55401
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