PANASONIC ICNA

Panasonic’s Innovation Center North America is a cutting-edge technology lab that provides custom solutions for their B2B customers. Their team of engineers are constantly inventing new technologies, coming up with new and innovative ways to tackle operational challenges in business, and adding on to their suite of connected solutions products. They came to us in desperate need of quality branding and marketing materials (they are 90% engineers!) We created all of this for them and more – everything from brochures & imagery that visualize these exciting solutions, to sales presentations, to naming new products, and a tour scheduling website that saved them hundreds of hours a month.

OVERVIEW PRESENTATION

The first component we created for ICNA was their Overview Presentation. It was used by their sales team to explain the solution company to potential customers, and also at the beginning of ICNA lab tours. We began branding ICNA with this project – the Panasonic-blue to green gradient is symbolic of the company’s collaborative process and corporate umbrella. We presented their complex process of customer collaboration and solutions development in engaging and easy-to-understand infographics and charts.

TOUR REGISTRATION WEBSITE

ICNA brings in potential and existing customers for tours of their Innovation Lab. Their staff was spending a huge amount of time scheduling and coordinating customer-specific details for these tours with their global sales team and other divisions of Panasonic, and struggling to keep everything organized and avoid conflicts. We came up with a solution – the ICNA Tour Registration Website. It enabled anyone to schedule their tour through an interactive booking calendar, enter in all the details and requests, and kept everything up to date in real-time. For example, if a tour slot was already booked, it would not be available in the calendar. All key information was asked for upfront, everything from NDA checks to catering questions, and it all resided in one central database easily accessible by all staff members.

The website was constructed in WordPress so that it could be scalable and easy to update by ICNA staff. We also made it fully responsive, so that anyone could access it from any device, no matter where they were. This website saved ICNA staff hundreds of hours per month that were previously spent on phone calls, emails and the constant updating of Excel documents coordinating new tours. It also 100% eliminated time conflicts, which had also been an issue.

LINKRAY

ICNA developed an amazing technology that communicates data through light. They asked us to name the product, and then bring it to life in a brochure. We named it “LinkRay,” and it is now trademarked in 12 countries including the US. It is truly groundbreaking – simply wave your smartphone at a LinkRay enabled object, and a website instantly appears on your screen. This inspired us to write the tagline, “Information at the Speed of Light.” We created the brochure and various photographic scenes showing the many uses of LinkRay in the real world. These scenes were created using stock photography only, and enabled ICNA to show off the power of the product without allocating a huge photoshoot budget.

SOLUTIONS BROCHURES

The LinkRay project was so successful, ICNA asked us to create brochures for their other connected solutions as well. We continued to visualize each solution for them, and even created custom GUIs for the various device screens.

Digital Mirror Brochure

Kiosk Solutions Brochure

Self-Service Enterprise Portal Brochure

IDENTITIES

ICNA was growing quickly, and we convinced them that they needed an official identity to maintain brand integrity. We created this logo for them, which embodies their mission of collaboration with the customer. The lighter blue “IC” slightly overlaps the darker blue “NA,” symbolizing working together, and the identity’s boldness reflects ICNA’s future-facing foundation.

Since most of ICNA’s solutions are modular and connected, they began referring to their “Internet of Vertical Solutions” as a way to package and sub-brand these products. We developed this logo for them, which is now used on all products and solutions in their “IoVS.”

LOBBY WELCOME VIDEO

We created a customizable welcome video that plays on a flat screen TV in ICNA’s lobby. It was constructed as a PowerPoint template, so that ICNA staff may change out the customer and tour information on the first slide, and make any other necessary edits to other slides, while not affecting its motion or animations. It showcases ICNA’s capabilities, and gets the viewer excited for what they are about to see on their tour, in a fun and engaging way. Below are a few key frames from the video.

PROMOTIONAL SWAG

ICNA asked us to develop some promotional swag to give away to customers on their tour. We created various branded materials for them, including this folder (above), Moleskine journal (below) and a cool LinkRay-branded light bulb USB drive that actually lights up when plugged in – a metaphor for both the technology itself, and ICNA as a whole with their constant innovation of new ideas.

DIGITAL CONCIERGE SUITE PRESENTATION

Digital Concierge Suite is ICNA’s latest innovation. They have partnered with IBM Watson to develop a cognitive AI platform, which powers a whole suite of connected, modular and scalable ICNA solutions. This is a huge initiative for them, but they were having a hard time telling the story and getting customers interested – which is where we come in. We sat down and listened to their pitch, and then helped them to tell the story in a more engaging way – literally writing a new one. We personified the Digital Concierge platform as this friendly avatar, and crafted the story around a simple theme “With You Every Step of the Way.” Our powerful photographic visualizations were utilized to show how Digital Concierge Suite (DCS) can weave itself into various aspects of different vertical markets, and revolutionize the customer experience in every case. We showed how the DCS suite is connected to itself, but can also be integrated into other existing infrastructures. Using the “imagine doing this simply by…” tone, we painted an exciting picture of this DCS-connected world. It was exactly what the ICNA sales team needed, and has already helped them secure major accounts.

MY ROLE

I created the overall look and feel for all ICNA materials, designed the ICNA and IoVS logos, oversaw the Tour Registration Website’s development with a third-party developer and created all of the UX/UI design, managed the design teams as they created all materials, wrote copy for almost all materials – including the Digital Concierge Suite story and presentation, and constantly met with ICNA engineers and their marketing executives to ensure that everything we developed was balanced and effective.