The Challenge
Western Union wanted to create a digital experience that would help them to celebrate their 160 year anniversary, assist with their brand awareness goals and introduce Western Union to a new online audience in a relevant and engaging way.

The Solution
The solution that was delivered was the result of a true collaboration with Western Union and our partners, leading communications agency Blue Rubicon, who developed the campaign strategy. The product and creative concepts were developed in partnership, then ideas.org focused on turning these concepts into a practical and shareable digital experience. This included delivering all aspects of the digital build and scalable hosting platform.

Western Union World – a digital experience divided into three sections: Our History, Our World and Your World.

Our History is a 160 year interactive timeline that brings Western Union’s history and business to life.

Our World is a dynamic visual representation of global money movement over the last century.

Your World is an engaging Facebook application enabling users to visualise how globally diverse their network is.

It provides users with a score based on the number of people and countries in their network. It is set up in such way to encourage users to challenge their friends to see who ranks the highest.

One of ideas.org’s strengths is building community and social elements into the products we build. By making one element of the platform viral (Your World) we have been able to maximise the reach of the client’s messaging in the other parts of the platform – Our History and Our World.

The Results
Your World has been a breat success with with over 200,000 users, visualising their social network and sharing them with over 30 million friends in the first 10 days.

If you’d like to try it out and see a global visualisation of your network go to Western Union World (www.westernunionworld.com).

Google’s ‘Meet Me on the Bridge’ campaign to mark International Women’s Day on 7th March, was a brilliant execution of how to do online marketing well. A simple idea: the tried and tested, personalised IWD Google-ized logo, that when rolled over took users to the campaign which got people all around the world to check into their local bridge in person or virtually – and leave messages of support. The interactive map shows the location and supporters; tabs to support related charities supporting women around the world, and the still shocking facts about women’s pay, work, lives, health, despite this being the C21st. Well done Google – a great example of what global corporations should be doing.

Found a great iPhone app that helps you find walks – both countryside + interesting historical routes. check it out here: WalkExplorer.

Innovative : decades of experience using existing technologies in creative ways.

Appropriate : user-centered design delivered within an agile development process.

Cost-effective : open-source solutions that drive value.

• Websites, Intranets & Extranets
• Communities & Networks
• Social Media
• Apps & Widgets
• Mashups, APIs & Data Visualisation
• Location Based Services & Local services

We work with clients directly or as agency partners. Our team of digital specialists can complement your existing team or work independently.

“ideas.org worked in a highly user centric and agile way to deliver a secure, scalable extranet used daily by 1000s of teachers across over 120 schools. We were impressed by how they translated our users requirements into tangible practical solutions.” Stephen Read, Head of ICT, Walsall, Serco

London office:
Innovation Warehouse
1 East Poultry Avenue
London
EC1A 9PT

Suffolk office:
The Old Post Office
Hessett, Suffolk
IP30 9AZ

Once we’ve understood your business objectives and the market in which you operate we apply our insight (our collective understanding of the digital landscape) and propose an appropriate digital strategy.

We also provide ideas Insights – standalone briefings that examine digital innovation specific to your industry and how your organisation could benefit.

We have a user-centered design philosophy and believe rapid prototyping is essential to reduce overall costs and deliver an end product people will use.

We follow the Agile Development methodology which means we build quickly, gather feedback regularly and revise the product on an ongoing basis.

We leverage open source frameworks, an extensive library of web & mobile software components and our CloudServe hosting environment to dramatically reduce costs, shorten delivery times and protect you from dependence on a single supplier.

We provide maintenance, hosting and domain management.

Our consultants can work on a day rate, a fixed price contract or a retainer (an ‘in-team’ arrangement that makes our people readily available to contribute to briefs and attend client meetings).