Ad Tech
Hearts & Science
WEBSITE CASE STUDY
What’s more exciting than working with a leading global marketing agency headquartered in New York? A client that needs to account for 27 offices worldwide needing 18 different regional sites in 7 different languages.
Discover how we brought their brand to life.
The opportunity
A global company with local presence
Hearts & Science is a marketing agency under Omnicom Group that specializes in leveraging data to reach new audiences. With a balance of heart and science in their approach, they are respectful of the data they aggregate and use it to deliver useful content to consumers at the perfect moment.
They came to us for a new site that would help them stand out, attract talent, and reflect their global presence. They requested 18 regions with language translations and ongoing customization to support it.
Our Strategy
The challenge
Unique expression in a crowded market
Positioning a company is difficult when there are hundreds and thousands of competitors. Why should someone choose to work with them? Where do they shine? And how were we going to unite 18 different regions while still giving them space for unique expression?
Hearts & science lives in fierce competition with a handful of its close competitors who also specialize in creating and distributing ads. Unfortunately these agencies frequently copy each other and look for an edge over both clients and talent. Nobody likes a copycat.
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The research
Discovering the rat race exit
As we looked across the industry we found a common positioning theme around the “state of the industry”. Almost everyone was incorporating this messaging, including Hearts & Science who was an early leader of the trend back in 2016. This made us wonder what competitors were positioning on before 2016.
Interestingly enough, we discovered another group trend from 2013-2015. Using the Wayback Machine, we were able to go back in time and discover that their competitors positioned almost exclusively on awards and work examples. But while important, awards aren’t enough on their own anymore.
So what was next? In a time where GDPR was being mass adopted and data privacy was becoming high profile, we knew exactly where to outshine the competition.
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The direction
Positioning with the end user in mind
We discovered that Hearts & Science holds an edge in the amount and quality of their data. It’s the secret weapon they use to gather the most accurate picture of what’s happening in real time with consumers.
Where competitors focus on accolades or the state of the industry, Hearts & Science would focus on the consumer because they’re at the heart of everything. Hearts & Science respects them and helps brands connect with them in positive, non-disruptive ways. They’re on the pulse of the consumer. They help brands keep pace in time with them as they evolve.
This new positioning was just the insight we needed to unite the regions globally. We even helped Hearts & Science articulate their company values as a rallying cry to support the messaging and attract talent. The values became, “We are trailblazers”, “We are shapeshifters”, “We are storyweavers” and “We are a team”. See the breakdown of each impactful statement on their careers page.
The direction
When messaging moves into design
Movement became the core visual identity that we used to bring their new site to life. It prompted an internal brand refresh half way through our project (which we always recommend doing before design, but we made it work).
We used constant movement and subtle animations to reinforce the message that Hearts & Science is always on the pulse of the consumer. We even named their blog “The Pulse” and defined some of their categories around their new positioning.
Contrast and duality became another important theme across Hearts & Science. Whether it’s squares turning into circles upon hover across the site, large artistic typography art reflecting opposites, or the name of the company itself, Hearts & Science acknowledges the complexity of consumers. For all the juicy details of the new visual identity, check out this full blog post.
Our Solution
The Results
Taking their new look to the world
Words were one thing. Design was another. Did you know that Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz is a single word in German that means “beef labeling regulation and delegation of supervision law”? Okay fine, that word didn’t appear on our site, but I think you can see how easy it is to go wrong. While German was the worst offender, we had to be careful across every language and ensure our design was flexible enough to accommodate longer copy in unexpected places.
Despite the hiccups in translation, we were able to deliver an incredible 18 region site with unifying positioning, values and continuous animation to help them stand out from their competitors.
Since launching we’ve worked closely with Hearts & Science on email campaigns, blog post creation, bio writing, new page designs, and global campaigns. We value our relationship and look forward to many more years working with their brand!
Morel of the story
Translation is sticky business.
18
regional sites
648
hours of blog engagement per month
366%
increase in SEO
“Virtual high five! You are geniuses. Thank you for continuing to be my allies and friends. Much appreciated.”
Jason Jahn, Marketing Director at Hearts & Science