Adobe Success Story

Marketing cars used to mean broadcasting 30-second TV spots and hoping viewers kept their hands off of their remote controls. But today, carmakers and their marketing agencies are finding more innovative, effective ways of connecting with consumers.

Consider the online Ford Fusion Mixer, created by interactive firm AgencyNet using Adobe Flash, Dreamweaver, Adobe Audition, Illustrator, and Photoshop software. On the Fusion Mixer site, consumers can fuse any of ten music styles to create their own mixes, just like real DJs, then save their mixes and pass them on to friends and family. The site targets upwardly mobile Generation X consumers whose tastes in music and technology influenced Ford's entire Fusion marketing campaign. The site is so engaging that Fusion Mixer users opt in to receive more information about Fusion at an unprecedented rate of almost 90%.

Benefits

• Created immersive websites
• Attracted high traffic rates to websites with innovative, compelling designs
• Garnered exceptionally high opt-in rates—up to 90%

Project Details

Tapping a hot trend
Once Ford identified its audience, the Ford marketing team engaged Zubi—Ford's Miami-based Hispanic ad agency—which brought on AgencyNet to create the Fusion Mixer. The Ford Fusion Mixer taps into an infectious underground movement in Latin music circles in which DJs mix Latin styles with other genres to create new and highly danceable club music. Available in both English and Spanish language versions, the Fusion Mixer lets consumers engage in the trend and make their own mix.

"We extended the Ford Fusion brand not only by touching on music as a passion for the Fusion target customer but also by tightly integrating the Fusion Mixer site with other elements of the launch campaign," explains Richard Lent, president of AgencyNet. "And due to the ease of creating multilingual sites in Flash, we were able to tap both English and Spanish speaking audiences to broaden our reach."

Unprecedented engagement
The Ford Fusion Mixer accomplishes a level of interaction and staying power that is nearly impossible to attain via more traditional advertising media such as TV or radio spots. On average, Fusion Mixer visitors spend several minutes on the site—sometimes more than ten minutes, depending on the number of mixes they create and their complexity—all while being exposed to subtle branding messages. Plus Lent explains, "The effectiveness of the Fusion Mixer as a brand-building experience should not be measured solely by the duration of these interactions but also by the users' interest in the vehicle, measured by the close to 90% opt-in rate to receive further information."

A smooth workflow
The primary development force behind the Ford Fusion Mixer, AgencyNet created the site using Adobe Audition, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, and Photoshop. "Our team was able to manipulate external audio files directly within the Flash environment. The audio capabilities in Adobe Audition proved invaluable for on-the-fly adjustments," says Lent. "And, the smooth integration in Flash between files created in Photoshop and Illustrator, along with the AS code that served as the technical backbone of the mixer, made the workflow practically seamless."

The AgencyNet team developed static designs in Photoshop and vector artwork in Illustrator, bringing them into Flash for animation. They built the site using Dreamweaver and Flash. "Adobe tools are the foundation of our operation," says Lent. "We literally couldn't accomplish our jobs without them."

Why Flash for marketers?
Technologies like Flash have been mainstays for AgencyNet since the agency's founding in 1994. The AgencyNet creative team has used Flash since its introduction, building immersive brand sites that touch users' senses and winning Emmys and numerous other awards for their work. "We've thought a lot about sites based on Flash as a marketing medium because they combine the emotional value of television and radio coupled with the interactivity of two-way communication. That's what makes Flash so unique and valuable for marketers."

Lent says his agency has been promoting Flash and the web for fostering one-on-one relationships for years, and his clients are starting to really catch on. Flash provides the ability to entertain and engage consumers in a personalized, highly relevant way, according to Lent, and that's invaluable for today's marketers trying to engage with consumers who may find static print, TV, and radio experiences lacking.

"Marketing today is almost like giving back to a community of consumers because you're providing them with an experience that resonates and gives them value," says Lent. "It's something consumers enjoy, and the client's brand is injected but it's secondary to the consumer experience."

Welcome to C-Ville, population 5,962 (and counting)
For Lent and his team, Adobe tools are essential to giving back to many different kinds of communities. They created another site, ownyourC.com, targeted for teenagers. The site helps teens—perhaps the savviest users on the web—learn that life is all about choice. Integrating traditional and new media, ownyourC.com uses a cacophony of illustration, sounds, green-screen video, 3D characters, and stop-motion animation to create a quirky world, C-Ville, that's chock-full of choices and designed to hold teens' short attention spans.

A collaboration between AgencyNet and Cactus, an innovative Colorado-based branding agency, ownyourC.com is an immersive, engaging, and viral destination. Based on the premise that every choice in life defines a person and has its own set of consequences, the site capitalizes on the individual customization only the web can provide.

Everything but the kitchen sink
Visitors are presented with choices immediately upon arrival by a talking "sun" (green-screen video) with a contagious accent that interacts with the visitors as they navigate through their unique site experience. Visitors can customize C-Ville at any point during the site experience by selecting weather (rain, snow, or sun) and ambiance (romance versus monsters) options.

"Easter eggs" hidden throughout the site capture users' attention, keeping them searching for more and ultimately increasing site stickiness. The Park, one of C-Ville's three main areas, features the dynamic Cootie Catcher, an interactive version of the paper origami fortune-tellers. Used as a mechanism to enhance the power of decision-making in life, the Cootie Catcher takes users through a series of choices and their consequences, starting with teens' interests and leading to the ultimate result—a potential career path.

There are other areas, such as Downtown C-Ville, where visitors can find out about upcoming events, enter contests, and watch the witty "ownyourC" TV commercials Cactus created. The site also offers iron-ons, icons, wallpapers, ring-tones, and other portable goodies. A Forum section encourages users to post comments and assist one another with life's tough choices.

Combining digital and physical materials
For ownyourC.com, AgencyNet designers started with hand drawings, as well as digital sketches created with Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2. Then they created the physical set design for C-Ville using raw materials and found objects including papier-mâché, wire, popsicle sticks, tree branches, screws, chicken wire, newspaper, yarn, wood, rocks, foam, and cloth. The designers coupled these physical elements with cutting-edge technologies such as green-screen video, stop-motion animation, streaming video edited in Adobe Premiere Pro software, custom audio, Adobe Flash and After Effects animation, and user customization capabilities. Already, the site has received more than 20 awards, including Site of the Month (SOTM) at thefwa.com (favorite website awards) and Communication Arts Site of the Week, and was featured in Web Designer magazine.

Other than the physical models AgencyNet built, Adobe software provided the core tools to complete the experience. "The media paradigm is shifting," concludes Lent. "Regardless of where they are spending their time, Adobe tools enable us to create enriching, engaging experiences that keep people coming back for more."