Media Kit. - Smashing Ideas

Media Kit.
2211 Elliot Avenue, Suite 110, Seattle, WA 98121
www.smashingideas.com
Table of contents.
Agency Overview & The Details
3-4
History of Smashing Ideas
5-6
Leadership
7-8
The Company We Keep
9
Our Digital Engagements:
WeatherCaster
11
Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking
12
Stephen Hawking’s Snapshots of the Universe
13
Ultimate Sharks
14
Living Language
15
Barbie Digital Makeover
16
Panasonic Avionics
17
A Sampling of Industry Success
18
Media Contacts
19
2
Agency overview.
With a name like Smashing Ideas, creativity and pushing the edge of impossible are what make
us jump out of bed every morning. When it comes to designing mobile apps, websites, products
and platforms, however, it isn’t just about great ideas. It’s about ideas that are successful from
concept through execution.
That’s why we believe in Make. Believe.
Make.
By staying LEAN and AGILE through the creation of early prototypes, real user testing and
rapid iteration, we’re able to refine and optimize the end product along the way. This “Maker’s
Mentality” helps everyone on the team focus on the best ideas first - and gets us to working
code, faster.
Believe.
Sure, we’re idea people – we love to dream big. But we’re mad scientists too. Our proven
methodology reveals the true needs and motivations of your customers. And, when aligned with
your business goals, we reveal the opportunities that lead to the highest levels of engagement.
Our approach is simple and collaborative...
We focus on engagement by applying Motivational Design. Our ideas take rapid flight through
Lean UX and Prototyping. And, we plan for change by employing Agile Methodology.
The result?
Increased engagement, retention and revenue.
3
The details.
Founded in 1996, Smashing Ideas is a full-service digital agency that makes the most engaging
apps, websites, products and platforms possible. We are located in Seattle, WA, perfectly
situated between the waterfront and Pike Place Market. While headquartered in the United
States, our clientele and consumer base is global, with our digital engagements in use in more
than 100 countries worldwide. Smashing Ideas is a Penguin Random House company.
Employees
Our Services
70 employees
5 year average employee tenure
6 year average client tenure
• Strategy
• Strategists
• Web and mobile development
• User Experience
• Digital quality assurance
• Visual Designers
• Digital analytics and insights
• User experience
• Ideation and design
• Developers
4
History of Smashing Ideas.
Pushing the edge of impossible for nearly 20 years.
1996
Smashing Ideas was founded by Evan
Clarrissimeaux, Glenn Thomas and Ben Yenter.
Focus was on Flash animation in the form
of webisodes and taking traditional media
properties and expanding them into digital
marketing events on emerging platforms.
Early 2000’s
Smashing Ideas positioned itself as a
digital innovation agency, leveraging Flash
to create engaging online experiences in
the form of games, activities, immersive
advertising and websites.
2005-2007
Smashing Ideas began to experiment in
creating content for multiple platforms, with
the belief that consumers would demand
rich, engaging experiences on all screens.
Investment in mobile development and IP
creation led to the launch of Smashing Ideas’
UK office and a worldwide push to distribute
content on carriers and devices.
New clients included Sony Ericsson, Nokia,
Adobe and Verizon.
Youth and family market became a large
focus, with clients including Disney, Kraft,
and Nickelodeon.
2008-2009
Focus evolved to the connected consumer
that can access content from any device.
Smashing Ideas created the user experience
of a first-of-its-kind connected device for
GE Security. By merging streaming and
digital content, such as weather, lighting,
temperature control, and news headlines
with a security console, users were able to
access real-time information and customized
control at their fingertips.
Smashing Ideas championed UX design
strategy for multi-screen engagement. A
technology-agnostic approach to solutions
broadened our technical offerings, while our
first apps appeared in the iTunes App store
with Top 10 chart appearances.
Nominated for a Primetime Emmy for the
Disney Channel Broadband player on
disneychannel.com.
5
2010
Smashing Ideas’ launched the ePublishing
group to lead the digital evolution of
reading with the release of the iPad.
Created first-of-kind digital products
for our publishing clients and released
original applications over the coming
years based on acclaimed literature: War
of the Worlds, Jungle Book, and OZ.
Fortune 500 clients looked to Smashing
Ideas to develop innovative UI and
content solutions for emerging handheld
and in-home devices as the mobile
revolution fully takes hold.
2011
Smashing Ideas was acquired by
Bertelsmann, a multinational mass media
corporation, for its Random House, Inc.
division. The move signified Random House
and Bertelsmann’s intention to be leaders in
digital content creation.
Smashing Ideas built the largest multisite Drupal installation in the world for our
international television-media partner.
2012
Smashing Ideas’ rendition of Julia Child’s
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
application for Random House was awarded
Best of 2012 on the iTunes App Store.
2012-Present
After fine-tuning the use of game mechanics
and game design thinking through the
creation of over 400 games, Smashing Ideas
transitioned to a broader set of services,
centered around our Motivational Design
Methodology.
Through user experience strategy, creative
ideation, design and development, we
apply Motivational Design to increase
engagement for every application, website,
product and platform we build.
6
Leadership.
Brian Burke
Victor Allen
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Technical Officer
Built upon his experience in early and late-stage
start-ups, Brian leads Smashing Ideas’ business
growth in competitive markets, creates diverse
revenue opportunities and guides the innovations
team to develop leading-edge design and techdriven solutions that blend physical with digital.
Victor leads the Dev and QA teams, as well as
guides the agency’s overall technical strategy
and development process standards. Victor
always takes a client-first approach by providing
consultation services on product realization for
leading-edge partners worldwide.
Brian Marr
Chad Otis
Chief Strategy Officer
Executive Creative Director
Brian is passionate about creating digital
experiences that harness the Power of Motivational
Design. He leads the Strategy team to deliver
digital solutions that increase time spent, retention
and revenue.
Chad leads the Creative Team to design the most
visually appealing and user-centered experiences
possible. From best practices for UX and
production methodologies, to interaction and visual
design tenants for desktop and mobile, he guides
creative solutions that produce measurable results.
7
Patrick Cousans
Drew Erickson
Director of Engagement
Director of Finance
Patrick manages the engagement between
Smashing Ideas and our partner clients. From
aligning product goals to establishing cross-team
dynamics, he helps refine business objectives
for clients to ensure product profitability and
successful deployment.
Drew leads the finance and administrative teams
that support the financial health of the agency.
From measuring and evaluating performance to
identifying opportunities that optimize business
growth, Drew helps guide Smashing Ideas’
economic strategy and forecasting.
Charlie Barr
Lisa Forsyth
Senior Director, Business Development
Senior Manager, Production
Charlie has nearly 15 years of experience
developing deep partnerships in the digital and
brand ecosphere. His commitment to forging
strategic partnerships with clients and digital
partners helps companies define their digital
engagement strategy.
Lisa is responsible for the successful management
of one of the agency’s largest clients. She leads
and manages a highly skilled team of front-end and
back-end developers, QA engineers, designers
and producers that support more than 100 sites in
20 different languages across the globe.
8
The company we keep.
We’ve worked with clients ranging from Fortune 500 conglomerates to local start-ups, and
everything in between. We pride ourselves on creating user-specific digital engagements that go
beyond the obvious and push the edge of impossible.
9
Our Digital
Engagements.
Apps, Websites, Products & Platforms
10
When watching the weather
is not enough.
Mobile // Gannett
WeatherCaster
Our task was to build a weather app that stood out from the clutter. Our solution was to create the ultimate
weather experience – localized, elegant and easy to use. Leveraging the expertise of Gannett’s trusted
on-air meteorologists, we designed a robust exploratory digital weather experience that provided in-depth,
local weather forecasts, including severe weather alerts, hurricane tracking, animated radar, and interactive
maps – all in retina-enhanced high definition.
Leveraging a comprehensive feature set, WeatherCaster marries expertise and technology to deliver
quality, localized forecasts around the country. Though there are several weather-focused apps in the
mobile space, only WeatherCaster brings the strength of meteorologists from 15 markets nationwide.
Winning
• 2012 Tabby Award to Best in Intelligence,
Information and Reference App
• Featured as top weather app by Macworld and
Geek Beat TV
• Ranked in the top 10 weather apps for the iPad
and iPhone on iTunes and was consistently
ranked in the top 20 for almost a year in the
weather category
• Named a top 15 “Outside-The-Box” weather apps
by Netted by The Webbys
11
Re-imagining Julia Child’s
classic cookbook for the digital age.
Mobile // Penguin Random House
Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of
French Cooking
We created a cooking app to simplify the complexity of Julia Child’s delicious French cooking and celebrate
her extraordinary life. While Mastering the Art of French Cooking can be seen as intimidating, we wanted
to create an environment that was approachable and warm. Since the user interface was the first point of
contact, we chose to incorporate – as a way to capture her essence – elegant transitions, lush textures, rich
patterns, and vivid photography of Julia’s life and culinary masterpieces.
As a metaphor to organize the content, we chose the traditional recipe card, which allowed for quick and
easy navigation. To capture the time in which she lived, videos associated with recipes from the 1980’s
television series, The Way to Cook, gave it a retro flare, as well as an additional dimension to her huge
personality. A carousel of rare photographs with narration by her long time friend and editor, Judith Jones,
provided an intimate window into Julia’s life.
Winning
• Apple’s app store Best of 2012 list
(Cooking category)
• iTunes #1 paid Food & Drink app
• 2013 Webby Award Official Honoree
(Lifestyle category)
• iTunes top featured What’s Hot app
• iTunes New & Noteworthy featured app
12
Explaining the principles that control our universe
through simple experiments.
Mobile // Penguin Random House
Stephen Hawking’s Snapshots
of the Universe
The world’s foremost authority on science, Dr. Stephen Hawking, and his publisher, Penguin Random
House, sought to translate his best-selling books, A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell,
into an interactive and educational mobile application that makes the laws of time and space not only
accessible, but engaging and fun. By taking an “easy to use, difficult to master” approach, we took our
extensive history in game design (400 and expanding!) and used it as our North Star during development,
because casual games have clear appeal to kids and adults.
We applied game mechanics like “mastery” to motivate users to master scientific concepts, just like they
might want to master levels in a game. We also made a deliberate departure from the more typical dark
palette and highly rendered graphics we too often see in science and space content, in favor of a supersimplified visual treatment. Distilling the visuals down to an infographic style added clarity to the content, as
well as making the app more relevant and appealing to a general audience.
Winning
• iTune’s Editor’s Choice, December 2013
• 4 star rating on iTunes
• iTune’s Featured App in the Education category
• Downloaded in over 90 countries
• eSchool News App of the Week
13
Sharks out of water, into digital.
Mobile // Discovery Communications
Ultimate Sharks
Our task was to build an app to enhance and extend Discovery’s Shark Week. Our solution was to build the
definitive, first-of-its-kind, interactive 3D shark app. In close partnership with the Discovery team, we built
an end-to-end interactive experience that would not only appeal to Shark Week’s massive following, but
would be the de-facto, scalable, interactive-reference app on sharks.
The Ultimate Sharks experience blurs the lines between app, book and interactive. Its rich user experience
features more than 250 photos, 3+ hours of video, custom interactive 3D shark models, info-graphics, and
GPS enabled shark-attack maps. As a post-launch add-on, we created an “attack-pack” featuring 5 new
shark attack stories, as well as additional extensive content that users could purchase in the app store.
Winning
• iTunes iPad app of the week
• iTunes Top 10 Paid App
• iTunes #1 Book App
• Featured in an Apple iPad commercial
• Featured in “What’s Hot” in iTunes App Store
• Featured in “Apps for Learning Astronomy &
Earth Science” in iTunes App Store
• Featured in “Back to School Apps - Fun with
Science” in iTunes App Store
• Awarded a spot on the 2012 Lovie Awards
Official Shortlist in the Experimental & Innovation:
Tablet category
• Featured as innovative app by Gizmodo, Wired,
AppNewser, iPad Insight, and Perezhilton.com
14
Deploy a truly cross-platform solution
for language learning.
Mobile & Website // Penguin Random House
Living Language
In partnership with Random House Books we translated language learning from what was once only
available on CDs and tapes into a comprehensive, multi-screen, multi-platform digital experience. In close
collaboration with the Living Language team at Random House, we used a mixture of audio, visuals, and
games to help consumers comprehend and retain language.
Guided by a four-step methodology that included foundational language lessons, comprehension
and retention, lesson completion, and rewards and achievements, we created an interactive gaming
experience that complemented the way a user learns best. Whether the user’s dominant learning style was
auditory, visual, kinetic, or a combination, exercises like flash cards, word search, and fill in the blank, lead
users through a fun and engaging experience where repetition and retention are reinforced without the
user even realizing it.
Winning
• No matter the device or location, users can
easily navigate Living Language’s 46 lessons
and associated content, including games,
audio and visuals
• Built for Web, iOS, and Android devices, the
digital suite provides a seamless experience
across the board
15
Blending the physical and digital
to create a new way to play.
Product Development & Mobile // Mattel®
Barbie Digital Makeover
Through a great collaboration with our clients at Mattel® and their technology partner, CyWee, we helped
create an engaging, connected experience that introduces an entirely new way to play. Just slide an iPad®
into Mattel’s Barbie Digital Makeover console, and it automatically connects via Bluetooth to power the
experience. The Barbie® Digital Makeover iOS app launches, the lights on the console come on, and the
iPad’s front facing camera projects your image onto the screen.
Applying digital makeup is an intuitive, fun process and is almost indistinguishable from putting on real
makeup. You can select options like eye shadow, lipstick or blush and apply colors and glitter to the “Digital
You” by touching a color pod on the base of the console with your finger, then pretend to apply the makeup
to the “Real You” with the applicator – the facial-tracking technology keeps the digital makeup in place as you
move, as though you’re really wearing it. You can also apply accessories, such as hair bows and headbands
to the “Digital You” that also stay in place. Once your look has been perfected you can strike a pose and take
a snapshot of yourself. Before saving your creation to the Photos app on your iPad, you can apply frames,
graphics, speech bubbles, and other touches of flair that reflect your personality or sense of style.
Winning
• Ranked #1 free iPad app by iTunes in the
Entertainment category
• Selected as a “New & Noteworthy” app in the
App Store
• Ranked in the top 5 overall in the App Store in
over 20 countries
• Rated 5 stars across all categories in
TimeToPlayMag.com
• Ranked #1 in App Store in 6 countries
16
Conceptualizing the comfort and convienience
of the 21st century flyer.
Platform & Mobile // Conceptual Case Study
Panasonic Avionics
Using a skies-the-limit approach, we conceptualized how airlines could revolutionize a flyer’s experience
from start to finish. All airport and flight information, entertainment and amenities would be centralized
into one user-friendly platform. All components of the trip could be managed from the singular, seamless
application, reducing travel stress. The application could even navigate the traveler to the shortest security
wait lines. Once on the airplane, in-flight entertainment would be initiated by the flight crew and would
cease the moment they deplaned, yet the flyer’s personalized travel information would continue to run.
Airlines spend millions of dollars a year on the upkeep of in-flight entertainment, with local servers housed
on each airplane. This equates to additional bulk and weight, not just for the servers and screens alone,
but for the of rivers of wiring flowing throughout the subflooring. By developing a cloud-based platform
that eliminates such physical additions to the plane, airlines could potentially save millions on fuel, and the
weight reduction could allow for planes to travel greater distances with less cost.
Winning
• Delivered proof of concept for personalized
in-flight entertainment and amenities that are
available at any time throughout the duration of
the flight
• Reduced airline infrastructure allows for savings
in fuel demand and increased time in-air
• Airlines can create a holistic experience for
their travelers that span beyond the flight
and include hotel, car, food, and shopping
advantages – creating greater customer loyalty
and engagement
17
A sampling of industry success.
Smashing Ideas has collected 50 awards over the years, including a Primetime Emmy nomination.
While awards are a nice recognition of hard work and leading-edge thought, we’re most proud of
the fact that our work has been enjoyed by more than 1 Billion people around the world.
2014 USA Today’s Top 5 Apps for Learning to Read
Wallykazam! Letter and Word Magic
2013 Editor’s Choice Award from iTunes App Store
Stephen Hawking’s Snapshots of the Universe
2013 Webby Award Honoree, Lifestyle Category
Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking
2013 UK iTunes App Store “Best Apps”
A World of Ice & Fire
2013 FWA Mobile of the Day Award
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
2012 Tabby Award for Best Intelligence, Information &
Reference App
Weathercaster
2012 Web Marketing Association Award for Best
Entertainment Website
Polly Pocket
2012 Digiday Mobile Award Finalist in Best Mobile App
in Branded Content
Barbie Fashionistas
2006/2007 Primetime Emmy Awards Nomination for
Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Television
Disneychannel.com Broadband Video Player
18
Media contacts.
We’re always percolating on new ideas, sharing our latest insights, and educating others on our
proven methodology that equates to business success. If you’re interested in speaking to us for
any reason, from business inquiries to having Smashing Ideas educate your team, or present at a
conference, here are the people to be in contact with.
Brittany Carlstrom
Charlie Barr
Marketing Manager
Senior Director, Business Development
+1
+1
206.378.0100, ext. 143
[email protected]
[email protected]
206.378.0100, ext. 127
[email protected]
[email protected]
Thanks for checking us out!
Give us a call
+1
206.378.0100
Visit us
Drop us a line
2211 Elliott Avenue, Suite 110
Seattle, WA 98121
[email protected]
19