6 4 7 . 9 8 9 . 2 1 9 6 6 t h e p o r t f o l i o o f a d i g i t a l a n d b r a n d c r e a t o r . . . Publish content to multiple mediums at a fraction of the time and cost continued ... STRATEGY App mockups for ivari Zero Print - The Marketing Director of Transamerica Life Canada, where I was working at the time, came up with the idea of ‘Zero Print’. The idea was to stop printing marketing materials and deliver them digitally. An ambitious target was set at the end of 12 months. For a three-person digital team this was quite a challenge. All marketing materials were till then printed as and when required which was a major expense. It took a long time for the design, approval, and printing process; and the moment it was printed, it became outdated. I took the initiative to work on it and asked the manager’s permission. Drawing on my varied experience in publishing and IT gave me the confidence that it was theoretically possible to deliver all marketing materials through apps which had more engagement than a website. Over the next two months, I researched on various software platforms to create content that could be easily updated and digitally delivered. Major coup Since it was ‘zero budget’ for research I bought my own hardware [MacBook Pro] and experimented with trial versions of various app platforms. Within six months, after learning the software and developing prototypes from various app publishing platforms [Adobe DPS, GoodBarber, Shout’em, ionic, Appery, Mag+], I created and showcased a proof of concept for the web and app platforms. This was a major coup as our team was developing outside the purview of IT but with their blessings. Once the POC was approved by managers in marketing I presented and demoed the solution to various IT departments including software evaluation, security, web services, and implementation. I documented the whole workflow and process and trained two of my colleagues on the content updating process. This was a new foray into the app platform for the company so I took on the challenge of submission process to the app stores as well. This new process saved the company $15,000 in printing each brochure and drastically shortened the timeframe in designing, developing, and updating them from two months or more to less than two weeks. Analysis I began recording the thoughts and processes in finding an ideal solution to the problem. Based on requirements and where you are on the shifting digital landscape there will be many more solutions and approaches. At the concept level, some of the ideal requirements for the digital initiative were: - have a relatively low learning curve, - be cost effective, - easy to implement and maintain, - quick turnaround in content updates and that too to be done by marketing, - leverage existing design skills and software, - a high level of reader engagement, and - the content should be available on mobile devices [tablets and smart phones] as a native app. Tall order The requirements were a tall order which would have drawn resources from various departments in IT and marketing! Digital has both bridged and divided marketing and IT departments. Traditionally the fountainhead of anything connected to technology, IT was slowly loosening its digital grip to marketing, or at least partly. On the flip side, marketing can also be said to be encroaching into IT territory such as measuring (analytics) and digital publishing. I have been researching digital publishing trends and took on this initiative as a challenge. The first phase was to find out everything about the current design software, content
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