Welcome to the Escape Blog

The new Escape website is now live. Hope you like it.

Well, the world and his wife seems to have already slowed down… moving towards Christmas… Bah humbug.

This week we sent out out digital Christmas card, which featured Craig in all his glory and The Escapees, showing just how good they are on camera.

Our new Favicon made it’s way onto the web this week, preceding next weeks web launch…. oooooooo.

Rob has been tucking in to ‘client’ lunches all week. Apparently there is now a UK-wide shortage of Chilli Jackets across the country (his favourite client lunch “extravagance”).

On an Escapee note, Adam is leaving us next week to pursue his quest to be the UK’s answer to Perez Hilton, with his Showbiz Spy site, which has really taken off this year. Good luck to Adam. We will all be trying to get him “vey vey drunk” (said in the style of Leslie Phillips) at next weeks Christmas party.

I’m not one for patting my own back - my shoulders are little too big for that but I wanted to share an e-mail we had in today about our website, from a multimedia executive called Andrew. Bear in mind it’s not about me me me, it’s about The Escape’s approach in general.

Why? Well it basically re-enforces to me our own goals for the website with our understanding that we sometimes sell by not selling…

Dear The Escape

I have never been so impressed with a website as i am with yours. It is so functional and so informative that i have bookmarked it as my reference site for any web design and marketing information that i need. Okay, you may not be making any money from me, but i know all about you and my friends and colleagues may even become aware about you. From this, their friends and colleagues may become aware about you and so on. It’s only a matter of time before someone in that network uses your services!

I graduated with a BSc in Publishing Media covering just about everything in the print / publishing / design / marketing industry. I was employed as a Graphic Designer for print as that is the direction I wanted to take. However, I am now employed as a Multimedia Executive where my role is to advise on changes to our website as well as amending content on it. So, with this and the various novice websites that I am in the process of building, the Web has become part of my daily life and i believe this website is a terrific source of information for someone like me due its layout, content and style of writing.

Keep up the good work!

The ‘Bistro” meeting area of the office was noisy yesterday afternoon as Craig and Andy shot our Christmas Card video. That should be despatched next week - watch out for it.

The new Escape website is also nearly there as well and that should go live in the next couple of weeks. Wowsers!

On the work front, the BT Headsets website project went live this week and we also won a nice little contract from Hampshire County Council after a Creative Pitch.

Lin from Simplyhealth made us smile two weeks on the trot. Last week it was feedback, this morning she turned up to the office with Muffins. She’s the best!

The Christmas spirit is beginning to flow… yo ho ho.

An exciting week this week with big progress on The Escape website (v.9). If you are subscribed to our company e-mail newsletter, you will also get a preview of our new branding on Monday. We are like children at the moment with our new toy.

We have also been at fever pitch preparing for (still on target as of 12.30pm) the launch of the BT Headsets website next week, which uses a new version of our e-commerce solution. The CMS and e-commerce system has been six months in the making and is also being rolled out in the new year on a couple of other sites as an upgrade.

Simplyhealth gave us a reason to be cheerful as they won a silver in the CIPR Awards for Internal Communications for their ‘Escape designed’ magazine, The Link, “vastly improved on previous format in both content and design. New magazine more focused on audience… Good ‘this is us’ feel about the publication.” Well done to Lin and the editorial team at SimplyHealth Group.

We went live with a website for corporate golf gifts for Boston Golf this week as well also switched on a family of websites for Advanced Inc. out in Canada.

Back at The Escape, the props have arrived for the filming of our Chrimbo video - happening next week when Steven Spielberg becomes available. Also, Secret Santa time has arrived so no doubt the local Hawkins Bazaar will be like the scene from the new Tesco ‘Spice Girl’ advert this weekend.

Today it’s like the Mary Celeste at The Escape with Laura off ripping it up on her birthday (happy birthday Laura), Gary scooting round town in his new wagon and Jason sloping off early. Plenty more Friday cookies to go round though.

New projects in this week include a new website for the athletic legend that is Roger Black, who is keen to start using our new CMS system to create a more interactive web presence in the run up to the 2012 Olympics.

Our own new website is going full steam ahead and we are hoping to have this up before Christmas. There’s still lot to do but as part of a brand repositioning we are being a lot more measured in our approach - which is quite rare for us.

By the way, is it me or has the Christmas slowdown already started? I’m off down the pub for a warm toddy.

I had great meeting yesterday with a couple of people from Venues4u.com and I came out with a real smile on my face. The company won a web prize we donated to a recent Women In Business Event and the meeting was the initial kick-off to see what they wanted and to explain how the project process would work.

Why I loved the meeting was because we managed to add a different perspective to the way they could communicate online. From being relatively negative about what they could get from a website, based on past experiences, ideas soon start flowing on ways that the new site would be improved to attract the relevant clients they were searching for.

And, I’m not just talking about the design. Yes, we need to reposition the identity, followed through with tone of voice and message, but I’m talking about the way they could interact with customers online, and they way they could refine the audience they appeal to.

The key to this working is that they know their business and the way their industry works. We know how to convert that online into a relevant proposition. Putting those two things together creates excitment and positive intentions towards a web project.

Building a website is not just about nuts and bolts. It’s about assessing hopes and fears and turning them into opportunities, or adapting messages to overcome doubts.

Of course the proof is in the pudding but it’s a genuinely exciting project. I’ll keep you updated.

So, another week hurtling towards the big C, and the window scrapers are out as the mornings of Basingstoke become ever more frosty.

One person who is not frosty, is our warm and fuzzy Louise who has just landed our biggest ever web project to start in the new year. The job entails developing a whole family of websites with a central property database - She da girl.

We’ve have also started a project this week to strategically re-position the Magic Mitre global website as look to expand.

Craig met Mark, who he actually met (hut-hum) 17 years ago, and has excitedly been telling us all about a product that Mark’s company Storepoint have developed that creates artwork automatically online, with translation and variable data. We are hoping to partner up as this solution has massive benefits to organisations looking to create marketing collateral across different languages quickly and cost-efficiently.

Lastly, it’s 37 days to go to Christmas and Jacqui “I wish it could be Christmas Everyday” Sanwell has already put our tree up. To be fair to her, we are shooting our Christmas video next week. That hasn’t stopped her humming Christmas tunes though and reminding us how soon it is.

A bit of a formal announcement. Simon Calderbank, our Sales Director has left the company today after 14 months.

This is a company decision and a sad one to make and is purely a cost-cutting excercise as far as The Escape is concerned.

We all wish Simon well for the future. It’ll be quiet with ya.

Sorry, we have been a bit rubbish recently posting our own news. I could say it’s the old ‘treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen’ routine” but I would be lying - we have just been a little busy.

So, to this week… A small feeder site for Corrosion Training went live for MPI after the success of their Marine Diplomas site. We have also been racking up some nice smaller projects after a large website we are working on got postponed until January. This is good news as it will be a more strategic led presence across a number of sites.

We also started on a website for BT Headsets as we have nearly completed version 2 of our e-commerce solution. We are very excited about this product as it is very powerful in terms of running an online shop with so much more scope to develop a more comprehensive experience for customers. For starters, it’s full content-managed, allowing you to add all sorts of ‘other’ content away from the shop section.

We have also started our Christmas campaign project for 2007, which will be online, and it’s had us laughing this morning - watch this space.

Oh, and a cat joined our Facebook Group.