The difficulty for large corporate websites is often the large amount of content.

Historically companies have squeezed as much content and as many links to pages and documents as possible on the homepage as this was always the entry point for users. Search engines have changed the way we access websites and has meant that it is not always the homepage that a user lands on. For example if I type “Directors and Officers Insurance” into Google it is the D&O landing page of many market leading websites that is shown, not the homepage.

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The UK’s national trade body for insurance brokers has hired FWD Digital to design its new website.

The British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) appointed FWD Digital this week following a competitive pitch in December.

The FWD Digital team for BIBA will be led by project manager Craig Freeman supported by account director Jonathan Harradine and creative director Nick Patchitt. The team will report to BIBA’s head of communications Leighann Burtrand.

Work on the site begins immediately with the new design being unveiled to brokers at BIBA’s national conference in Manchester this May. Read the rest of this entry »

I was recently interviewed by the AXA IP Team about how brokers can benefit from social media.

The interview went very smoothly and I am happy with the results. At FWD Digital we work with brokers, insurers and other financial service organisations on a range of areas from web design to social media. One thing that is becoming apparent it that a lot of clients and prospects are looking to build their knowledge of digital with a view to stepping up their activity in 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

The City of London is usually a relatively peaceful place on a Monday as people catch up on emails and knuckle down to work after the weekend. This morning it was even more quiet than usual because the weather was so horrible and everyone was staying inside, but at about 11:30 loud music and shouting interrupted meetings and broke concentration. Martin Wiggins, director of FWD Marketing was hosting a client meeting in our boardroom and despite the rain and the cold was about to head out to investigate the commotion. On spotting me it was requested that I carry out the investigation in his place due to the meeting currently in progress, while very helpfully calling the lift for me.

Without time to grab a jacket or umbrella I rushed out into the elements armed only with my iPhone only to hear the music disappearing round the corner of Leadenhall Street and Gracechurch Street heading South. A quick cut through Leadenhall Market and I caught the noise up at the traffic lights. Now I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat waiting to know what the cause of all of this commotion was…well it was an open top double decker bus full of people dressed as cows!

Despite some very loud speakers playing at the front of the bus, large green banners draped down the side and shouting cow people waving flags and attracting attention from all angles it took me a while to work out what they were promoting. It was enough though to make me want to find out and on closer inspection it turns out that they were from Friends of the Earth and raising awareness that on 12 November MPs will be voting on a new law to break the hidden link between animal feed in factory farms and wildlife and rainforest destruction in South America.

Conclusions

This form of flash mob/gorilla marketing is nothing new, but what I did find interesting is their use of a URL. The banners and flags direct you to www.jointhemoovement.com which is not a website, or even a microsite. It simply re-directs you to a page on the Friends of the Earth website. This will have kept the costs down, meant no new content is required, pushed traffic to the main site to boost SEO, and ensured the route to information is a neat and tidy one.

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