Feb 17 2012

Emakina is one of the big winners in the Interactive Media Awards, with 2 ‘Best in Class’ and 4 ‘Outstanding Achievement’ distinctions. The jury of this worldwide contest follows the highest standards of excellence in web design and development and honours individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement.

The Interactive Media Council (IMC) who created the awards is an international association of leading web designers, developers, programmers, advertisers and other web-related professionals.

International Crisis Group and Evolta City, Best in Class

The ‘Best in Class’ award is the highest honour bestowed by the Interactive Media Council.

This year, Emakina’s The Reference receives the prestigious award for the International Crisis Group Website. The project successfully combines the serious nature of this worldwide organisation with its dynamic, open communication style, while emphasizing ICG’s values and strengths.

Panasonic Evolta City, a project by Design is Dead also received this highest honour, in the category  ‘Community’. The collaborative social media game brought together players from across Europe to build the biggest Zero CO2-emission City on the World Wide Web.

The jury declared both winners excelled in all areas of the judging criteria and achieved a perfect or near perfect overall score. Both sites represent the highest standards of professionalism, compliance, impeccable planning and execution.

Four Outstanding Achievements

The ‘Outstanding Achievement’ awards are the second highest prize bestowed by IMA. Emakina was selected four times out of the international pack of competitors.

The Schweppesonality campaign won in the ‘Lifestyle’ category. The Schweppes brand is working on a global rebranding, together with Emakina. Schweppesonality is an original activation campaign about the fans of the brand and their charismatic, unexpected and inspiring personalities, true Schweppesonalities.

SamsungWorld received the award in the category ‘Community’ and ‘Consumer Services’ website.  This new online meeting point for Samsung clients channels all opinions and discussions on Samsung and its products towards one, dynamic environment. Visitors exchange ideas and discover promotions, goodies and news items, in a tailor made CRM system.

50 Lawyers last but not least is the winning campaign for Test-Achats, in the category ‘Professional Services’. In a web centric campaign eco system, consumers were invited to file their complaints online and share their experience in social media. The original campaign showed TestAchats/Test-Aankoop lawyers in a military training camp, preparing to fight for the rights of their consumer clients.

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Feb 7 2012

The Reference kicks off 2012 in full swing, with a new logo and new website. The full service web agency located in Ghent grew rapidly in recent years, both in size and services. The new corporate identity shows the company clearly wants to keep this momentum going. So it’s not without pride the new logo, a corporate movie, a completely revamped website and a corporate web app are presented to the world.

Keep reinventing yourself

The Reference, part of the listed Emakina Group, launches its new corporate identity.
Anja Cappelle, Managing Director of The Reference: “As a full service internet agency, we follow the latest trends and technologies up close. We need to, in order to offer our clients the best possible service. Your visual identity affects how you are perceived in the market. We find it important to keep reinventing ourselves; our own communication should radiate this idea. Our new corporate identity also symbolizes the major evolution our company is experiencing. The dynamic team of The Reference has grown to 85 web specialists. And they deliver a vastly increased range of services to our customers. So it was high time to zoom in on our own brand, for a change… we’re proud to share our new corporate identity, website and corporate film. ”

A more robust logo, continued in the house style and agency reel

The new logo of The Reference underlines both literally and figuratively the company’s dynamism, its leadership and professional approach. Motion is increasingly important on the net, so a company reel had to be part of the launch. The brand new video illustrates the birth of an idea. The images tell how creative thoughts should be nurtured and how the experts at The Reference add extra dimensions to them, molding them into success stories, together with their customers.

It’s not just Web, it’s (Y)our Business

The agency reel found its permanent place on the new site, developed with Alterian CMS. A clear structure and navigation path help the visitor to quickly discover the expanded services of The Reference. Each page consists of a “fast track”, with the essence at a glance, and a “read more” option, digging deeper into the content. The site proves social media and traditional web pages can reinforce each other: each screen is locked with context-sensitive tweets from various contributors. Numerous cases illustrate the proven experience of the agency. This expertise is also shared in 10 specialized training courses, now underway.

 
Also for mobile users

The Reference chose to unlock its website for iPhone and Android users, by way of an intuitive web app. With simple swipes and taps, the visitor explores all services, events, jobs and cases.

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Jan 23 2012

Starting on February 10th, The Reference is organizing 10 events on different digital subjects. As trend watchers, innovators and opinion makers, they believe it is important to share their insights with customers. Experts of The Ref are happy to provide you with their knowledge and to discuss the best practices of all things digital. You can choose the number of events you want to participate in. Customers of The Reference, Design is Dead and Emakina get a discount of 10%. If you register for all sessions, you receive the same discount.

The series of events starts on February 10^th with “Is social media part of your business”, where you will learn to make the correct strategic decisions in the social media landscape.

On March 2^nd, David Roose will explain you everything there is to know about “Measuring Business Goals with Google Analytics”.

“Strategic SEO for Marketing Managers” will be addressed on March 16^th. You will be guided in getting SEO on-board in your organization.

One week later, the 23th of March, it’s David Roose’s turn again for a workshop “Slicing and dicing with Google Analytics”. He will tell you everything about measuring more with custom code, configuring your accounts and profiles, and lots of other things!

On the 27^th of April, it’s time for Social again: “Social Strategy through Social Listening”. Tom Muyllaert will unveil the best free and paid listening tools and he will show you what you can learn from listening to conversations.

May 4^th is all about “Hands-on SEO for Webmasters and Copywriters”. In this workshop you’ll learn step by step the best methods that will help you to find the best possible keywords.

“Professional Link Building Strategies” are talked about by Nikolaas De Geyndt and Isabel Van Ruykensvelde. They will train you in how to strategically approach your link-building. The date for this event is May 11^th.

Mobile and tablet fans can have their say on June 1^st. Thomas De Vos, our mobile expert, will show you what “Mobile and tablets can mean for your business”. iOs? Android? Windows Phone? Web Apps? HTML5? Hybrid apps? There will be no secrets left when leaving this workshop!

On June 8^th you’ll learn everything about “Conversion Optimization”. Your website might be doing well, but experts of The Ref will help you to make it even better by striving for ultimate conversion.

And last but not least: on June 15^th Bart De Latte will introduce you to “The power of Search Engine Advertising”. He will show you how to analyze and interpret your results.

You can click the links if you are interested in attending one or more events. To subscribe, just fill in the form that you can find on the website. Should you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to contact Vicky Van Daele (vvandaele@reference.be)

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Jan 13 2012

Belgian marketing is clearly going digital, a new study by Emakina’s agency in Ghent, The Reference, indicates. 150 decision makers of digital marketing initiatives in Belgian companies participated in the survey.

In 2012, Belgian marketers will focus on social media marketing, mobile sites and monitoring performance.

Their main challenges will be to turn data into actionable insights and creating sufficient return on investment. Companies that claim to be leading in terms of digital marketing are planning to invest significantly more in social media monitoring and social/ mobile advertising.

This study indicates that the future of marketing is digital, with 20 % of marketing budgets already allocated to this domain and further growth ahead despite the crisis.The social media hype and the rise of mobile internet are still going strong and will continue. It also shows that a main challenge ahead will be to find the right expertise to get the job done.

The slideshare presentation gives a detailed overview of the trend in websites, traffic, social and mobile.

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Nov 24 2011

Over half a million apps to choose from…which ones would be smart to upload to your smartphone or tablet?

In their latest issue, Knack and Le Vif magazines present the Top Applications for smartphones and tablets in the Belgian market. Belgium being the complex market it is, the list of course is different in the Dutch and the French version…

Out of the jury of five members two experts came out of  Emakina Group companies. Emakina’s Chief Visionary Officer Brice Le Blévennec felt right at home in helping to create this special. Mobile Competence Center Manager Thomas De Vos from the Reference in Ghent also let his light shine on the mobile apps.

So with their colleagues they went to work and made a list of criteria, a selection of categories and then each added their favorites.

Our mobile experts  shared their knowledge in this large constantly evolving field of different kinds of Operating Systems : iOS (iPad, iPhone), Android, Symbian (Nokia), Windows or RIM (Blackberry).

Thomas De Vos of the Internet company The Reference says an app must be to the point, relevant and fun. Also, it should avoid superfluous functions.”Keep it simple; when you start it up you have to be able to do right away what it was made for. App makers tend to pile on functions with updates, but these should stick to the essence of the application.”

The list combines international favorites such as Flipboard, Foursquare, Dropbox and Plants vs Zombies with local gold, like TV Overal, Radio.be, Resto.be, KBC banking, Taxis Verts and Electrabel.

Wether you are ‘the connected senior executive’, ‘the organized teacher’ or ‘the active retired person’, wether you’re living a business Lifestyle, interested in entertainment or food, the two specials guide you to the must have apps.

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