Prolific North: Brands & Agencies

Launched in 2013, Prolific North quickly established itself as the leading news, jobs and events hub for the media, digital, marketing, tech and creative sectors in the North of England.

Through its extensive involvement in the digital sector, it recognised that for many brands, finding the right agency was no small task. And here, the concept for Brand and Agencies was born.

The brief

Prolific North set out to develop a centralised hub to help brands discover and connect with agencies across the UK (and vice versa). And, as its digital agency partner, we were quick to get involved.

The challenge

Although the concept for Brands and Agencies was simple, developing a platform of this scale came with a few complexities:

Serving simplicity to several audiences

Brands and Agencies was designed to serve three distinct audiences: brands looking to connect with agencies, agencies looking to connect with brands, and agencies looking for a new paid directory to generate awareness and leads. The proposition needed to be clearly conveyed on the website. And the user journeys clearly defined for the different audiences.

Driven by data

With thousands of different brands and agencies represented across the platform, the CMS would need to house enormous volumes of data. And this would need to be readily surfaceable for both brands and agencies looking to connect.

The work

The BAA brand and the website needed to be built from the ground up. But first, we needed to define the commercial strategy and value proposition.

Creating a commercial strategy

To launch a new service, first you need to define your audience, and understand your marketplace. So to kick things off, we hosted several immersion sessions with Prolific North, before we shaped the commercial strategy.

We proposed a subscription model for agencies, who in return would be able to get in front of engaged audiences, and stand out by showcasing their stories, work, testimonials and more. We decided that the platform would be free to browse by for brands and individuals, making it simple for them to connect with selected agencies.

Building the brand

Following the development of the commercial strategy and proposition, it was time to build the Brands and Agencies brand identity. Our creative team quickly assembled to work on the design concepts.

The chosen route features the letters ‘B’ and ‘A’ in a geometric and illustrative style, crafted with multiple free flowing lines to convey a sense of connectivity, exploration and ambition. Vibrant and dynamic colourways give the brand a clean and ultra-modern appeal and contribute to a memorable identity.

Creating a seamless customer journey

As a digital agency, we knew what features and functionality would be attractive to agency audiences. Brands too, as we work with many across a whole range of different sectors. But that didn’t stop us from creating a series of user-personas — as we do at the start of many digital experience projects — to help us design the site with our audiences in mind.

Other elements of our definition phase included wireframing, creating a functional spec, a statement of work and more, along with a project timeline to ensure we were all aligned on the project outputs and delivery times from the onset.

Developing the platform

We selected Umbraco as the DXP for its flexibility, scalability and integrations. As a long-term Umbraco Gold partner (we’ve been working with them since 2009), this gave us the assurance of live support should any issues arise.

We developed a number of customer solutions for this project, including:

An elastic search solution that allows users to combine location filtering with agency criteria (such as size, services)
A Go Cardless payment solution for annual subscriptions
A CMS solution for advertising and sponsorship retail space applicable to search results and service categories
A self-managed account area with profile access, editable content and case study template builder for agencies to update their profiles
An automated process that allows agencies to log-in and claim their profile, sending an authorisation request to the team at PN to approve
Additional verification processes to approve connections between agency and brands
A custom data import to handle all data, systematically linked with search inputs to provide dynamic results

The Results

From the development of the commercial strategy to the brand creation, website build and performance marketing activity, the Brands and Agencies project was no small feat. But as always, we were up to the challenge, and collaborated closely with Prolific North at every step of the way.

The Brands and Agencies platform has already generated some remarkable results, and continues to see steady growth in both agency and brand users, with 20,000 brands and 2,000 agencies already signed-up to the platform.

"Prolific North has and continues to be an important partner for Enjoy. So we seized the opportunity to collaborate with them to create, launch and develop an incredible new brand offering. We’re really happy with all the work so far, and look forward to the continued evolution of the platform, and promoting it alongside Prolific North into the future."

Alex Ellis, Managing Director, Enjoy

The experience to transform your experience

As a digital experience and performance agency, our mission is to transform and grow brands digitally, ethically and sustainably, and to forever challenge expectations about what digital can deliver.

If you’re seeking a digital experience that can supercharge your business performance — we’ve got the experience to make it happen. In fact, as an Umbraco Gold partner, we’ve delivered over 250 digital experiences since we started out in 2008. So what are you waiting for? Get in touch today and let’s get growing!

Work

Nisa

Retail