W. W. Norton
W.W. Norton wanted to enter a new market (economics) in a strategic way that allowed them to take a market leadership position with the first major book published. W.W. Norton identified a gap in the market where teaching economics extremely well was a rarity. W.W. Norton came to Hunt & Gather will a book in process scripted by a well-loved university economics professor who is know for his personality, wit, and humor. Hunt & Gather was commission to build a brand, community and following prior to the publishing of the book.
Challenges and Issues
The company faced significant challenges:
Hunt & Gather’s Smartistry
Brand Voice, Personality & Humor
Promoting master professor, Dirk Mateer with the right balance of fun and authenticity involved extensive interviews with students, teachers, and TAs as well as surveys, search trends analysis. Hunt & Gather created a content strategy for a a smart, funny brand personality that would have mass appeal to across a national audience. For the design direction, Hunt & Gather drew inspiration from 1940’s aesthetics, embracing the stereotype of the “nerdy professor” to create a unique look and feel that was fun, approachable, memorable, and relevant for the audience. Using humor was especially important for reaching new economics professors who will think of Dirk as their fun, approachable online colleague.
Content Strategy & User Experience
Based on key topics students struggled with, Hunt & Gather created robust “topic pages” for each search term that aggregated content curated by Dirk including itunes playlists, music videos, q&as, and real-world examples. User, mainly students and TAs, needed easily digestible content in the form of study guides, Q&As with Dirk, articles at their fingertips.
New economcis teachers are given a robust multimedia library filled with econ-related goodies: pop-culture videos, song lyrics, movies, class activities, sample PPTs, lesson plans leverage some of “Dirk’s special sauce” to spice up their own econ classroom.
W.W. Norton wanted to enter a new market (economics) in a strategic way that allowed them to take a market leadership position with the first major book published. W.W. Norton identified a gap in the market where teaching economics extremely well was a rarity. W.W. Norton came to Hunt & Gather will a book in process scripted by a well-loved university economics professor who is know for his personality, wit, and humor. Hunt & Gather was commission to build a brand, community and following prior to the publishing of the book.
Challenges and Issues
The company faced significant challenges:
Branding: Translate a teacher/classroom dynamic to an online user experience
User Experience: Define a master teacher category with the tone that is widely accepted
Campaign Roll-Out: Introduce person without mention of the upcoming book or publisher
Social Media / Content Strategy: Reach students and teachers assistants with search terms
Hunt & Gather’s Smartistry
Brand Voice, Personality & Humor
Promoting master professor, Dirk Mateer with the right balance of fun and authenticity involved extensive interviews with students, teachers, and TAs as well as surveys, search trends analysis. Hunt & Gather created a content strategy for a a smart, funny brand personality that would have mass appeal to across a national audience. For the design direction, Hunt & Gather drew inspiration from 1940’s aesthetics, embracing the stereotype of the “nerdy professor” to create a unique look and feel that was fun, approachable, memorable, and relevant for the audience. Using humor was especially important for reaching new economics professors who will think of Dirk as their fun, approachable online colleague.
Content Strategy & User Experience
Based on key topics students struggled with, Hunt & Gather created robust “topic pages” for each search term that aggregated content curated by Dirk including itunes playlists, music videos, q&as, and real-world examples. User, mainly students and TAs, needed easily digestible content in the form of study guides, Q&As with Dirk, articles at their fingertips.
New economcis teachers are given a robust multimedia library filled with econ-related goodies: pop-culture videos, song lyrics, movies, class activities, sample PPTs, lesson plans leverage some of “Dirk’s special sauce” to spice up their own econ classroom.
Results
Made economics relatable via pop-culture
Very deep, strong and successful branding and strategy phase managing multiple departments
Site built on the Symphony platform enabling easy updatability by the client
Excellent sense of fun and humor to encourage community, repeat visits, and viral adoption
Site launches in September 2011
Now a word from...
Fom W.W. Norton’s New Product Develoment Manager, Dan Jost
“Things are going great with the project - your group has been infinitely patient with our sometimes-snails-pace of content delivery/creation on our end, and we're super happy with how things are shaping up with the design, development, and branding strategy . We could not be happier and would like to express that to the rest of Norton, while also showing them what happens when you don't cut corners and actually follow process! This site will be genre-defining for this industry, a novel step in a new direction for book promotion.”
Fom W.W. Norton’s New Product Develoment Manager, Dan Jost
“Things are going great with the project - your group has been infinitely patient with our sometimes-snails-pace of content delivery/creation on our end, and we're super happy with how things are shaping up with the design, development, and branding strategy . We could not be happier and would like to express that to the rest of Norton, while also showing them what happens when you don't cut corners and actually follow process! This site will be genre-defining for this industry, a novel step in a new direction for book promotion.”
