Duncan/Channon. Award-winning branding. Advertising. Design. Digital. Social media. Mobile. Broadcast. Print. Outdoor. Identity. Packaging. Media planning and buying. Account planning. Production. Not to mention the Tip. All in one action-packed agency in downtown San Francisco.
There are actually two Lake Tahoes, north and south. With a half-dozen isolated resorts and few winter activities beyond skiing, it has been easy for consumers to grok an image of the north as the lake’s quiet side. On the other hand, with tons to do at every hour and for every budget, including great skiing at every skill level and conveniently located bars, restaurants, shopping and 24/7 gaming, it has been tough for consumers to envision a singular image of the south — or for marketers to project one cohesive brand.
No longer. The Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority, which is tasked with promoting the south side, hired D/C for a complete rebrand. Eight months later, client and agency unveiled the new brand and an entirely new name for the destination — Tahoe South. The strategy embraces the truth of the destination, that it’s the place for the up-all-day-and-night visitor, and the brand identity celebrates this spirit. The website is curated by local experts and serves as a digital concierge to the region, connecting visitors and would-be visitors to the best web content about Tahoe South, as well as relevant real-time feeds from YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter.
What do people want from their doctors? It starts with a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t. That’s what consumers told John Muir Health and, not coincidentally, what John Muir Health has delivered patients for decades. That insight is the basis for a comprehensive new campaign created by Duncan/Channon, JMH’s agency of record since July, 2010. The work is designed to reassure consumers, especially the moms who drive family healthcare decisions, that at John Muir Health patients are viewed as partners. Launching today, the effort ranges from TV, cinema and out-of-home to print, banners, mobile, Facebook and Pandora ads, and more. John Muir Health is one of California’s — and the nation’s — most highly-rated healthcare systems.
You might expect to see the venerable lion logo of the Ritz-Carlton Residences in Beverly Hills or Malibu. You don’t expect to see it in downtown LA near neighborhoods realtors politely refer to as “transitional.” The agency needed to paint a vivid picture for Ritz’s well-heeled customer of what it would be like to live in an area that only a few years ago they wouldn’t even visit. So rather than show the residences, which people are rightly inclined to believe are luxurious, the campaign — which includes banners, collateral and a new website, in addition to newspaper and magazine ads — puts the focus on the amazing sports, entertainment and dining options just outside their stylish front door.
Judge Rachel Pasqua pretty much hit the nail on the head when she described the interface, created for the new generation of Hard Rock Cafes, as “an innovative combination of social and touchscreen technology with a tactile twist on the old restaurant booth jukebox that lets users thumb through the memorabilia and cast their vote for the next video.”
Also honored in the CA Annual is the Rock Wall™, a sister project designed and developed by Obscura Digital which, like the booth interface, builds on the D/C-created Hard Rock memorabilia website. Big ups to them, to D/C’s development partners at Vertigo, and especially to Joe Tenczar and the Hard Rock team.
More Hard Rock interactive here.
The complete Hard Rock rebrand story here.
To show off its new “Surface” device (multi-touch, multi-user computer), Microsoft chose Duncan/Channon’s work for Hard Rock as one of its inaugural video case studies. Check out our own Mike Lemme as he waxes poetic about the amazing, hands-on memorabilia installations in Hard Rock’s new Vegas cafe. But the D/C love doesn’t stop there. Microsoft also gives us a shout-out in their video promo for the 2010 MIX Conference where we share the spotlight with other “up-and-comers” like Adobe, The Wall Street Journal and something or someone called Google. Congrats to Mike, his team and our esteemed dev partner, Vertigo, for the well-deserved exposure.
It all started with a groundbreaking little Deep Zoom website, conceived and designed by Duncan/Channon, that enabled rock fans to get extremely up-close-and-personal with Hard Rock’s memorabilia collection without having to travel. The site, now featuring 1,100 priceless pieces of rock history (en route to thousands more), was an immediate popular success – and a critical one, too, winning D/C two Webby honors.
But even as development continues on still more amazing editions of the site and its widget, Hard Rock management threw down the gauntlet: get the technology “out of the box” and into the properties, starting with the new flagship cafe opening today on the Las Vegas Strip.
Working with Hard Rock’s crack technology, property-development and memorabilia teams, and our friends and software development partner Vertigo, D/C designed three new interfaces for the cafe. These include two apps for Microsoft Surface – the multi-touch, multi-user, interactive tabletop – as well as a touch-based interface for the restaurant’s 38 booths, where guests can manipulate memorabilia, peruse merchandise and vote on what video plays next in the cafe. The agency also consulted with Obscura Digital on the Rock Wall™ – a massive (18 x 4 ft.), interactive display that enables six simultaneous guests to explore Hard Rock memorabilia with their fingertips.
There’s more. And more to come. But, honestly, isn’t that enough?
2) Share your favorite items on Facebook. Zoom in on any item you like and click on SHARE in the info panel to post that image and story back to your Facebook wall. Facebook?! Connect?! Yeah. I know. Friend my pal Watermelon Gum to see it in action… or go to the site and try it for yourself.
3) The Facebook Connect stuff is aided by a lightweight (invisible) Facebook app. Whatever. We also launched a Facebook fan page, so you’re gonna want to go ahead and become a fan there.
4) Filtering/searching via URL queries. No?! Yes! That’s what I’m telling you. Here’s an example of each of the link types we support as of today. Try ’em…
5) Filter-based embeddable widgets. Shut up! This is a bit of an “expert” feature for those in-the-know, and may only be used by Hard Rock for now, but – for you adventurous types – here’s a how-to page for custom widgets. And here’s a sample — every item that mentions the word “autograph.”
And there you have it. As the man said, Rock is King.
PS: Hidden bonus feature, just for kicks… Go to the site, enter v in the search box and then zoom out from there.
Whether it’s our favorite Dick speaking out against Obama and for torture. Or Senator Jim “MC Jimmy” DeMint vowing to break Obama over healthcare. Or Rush Limbaugh calling Sotomayor a “racist.” The right-wingnuts seem hell-bent on providing political satirists with rich material and our progressive, cause-marketing phone company client, CREDO Mobile, with perfect foils.
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