News

The OPEN Youth Trust is a charity which was established with the primary purpose of developing and delivering the very best facilities and services for young people in Norfolk.

In July 2009 a brand new £12m venue was opened in the centre of Norwich built especially for the 12-25 year olds living in the area to have a place to go and positive things to do. Within the building there’s a night club and climbing wall as well as dance and recording studios.

Soup was selected, at pitch, to design and build OPEN’s website: the platform from which young people would interact with the venue and a community for regional young people to engage with each other and OPEN.

Digital is the ideal channel to engage with young people as its integral to their lives. As digital natives, technology is not seen as a separate entity, rather it is a facilitator, helping them keep in touch with their friends and supporting their interests.

Soup interviewed a group of young people from Norfolk to discover what they would want from a website associated with OPEN. A key conclusion of that research was the importance of social media. It was also clear that young people wanted to create the content for the site with their groups of friends.

The project worked around a two-phased approach. Initially Soup delivered a microsite to coincide with the launch of the OPEN venue in September 2009. This provided information about OPEN: what you could do there and what was happening when. Soup also designed the flyers and posters to promote the opening club night, which sold out in a few days.

A Facebook group was created to be a key touch point for members to talk to each other and where OPEN could promote events and information.  

The second phase of the project was the main website which replaced the microsite. The website launched this month with increased functionality and social features. The website makes use of Facebook Connect; users can sign into the site using their Facebook login and automatically share information between the site and social network. Greater engagement is encouraged by allowing users to ‘like’ and rate articles on the site, which then appear on their Facebook home page. Users can also connect to OPEN through Twitter, Bebo and Myspace.

The website contains detailed information about all the different gigs, events and activities at OPEN, however, if young people can’t get to OPEN they can also use the site to find out what is happening closer to home, they can enter their postcode and any activities or clubs near them will appear.

Since the launch of the microsite in July there have been 33,929 visits from 19,668 unique visitors spending an average time of 3 minutes 47 seconds exploring the site.

The OPEN Facebook group has also been extremely active with 3,683 friends. OPEN staff are committed to responding as soon as possible to any queries and comments posted. Members also talk amongst themselves on the group: arranging to meet up and what they might wear to the club nights.

Events at OPEN have been extremely successful; nearly all of the club nights have sold out.  

The main website has only been live for a few days and is already encouraging increased interaction with OPEN. Visitors especially ‘like’ the chance to win signed Tinchy Stryder goodies by signing up as a friend of OPEN.

View project

Ryvita is a well established brand with a high profile amongst its potential audience. Consumers, however, largely associated the brand with dieting. Ryvita were keen to re frame the way their products were perceived; normalising them and making them an accessible lunch time option for anyone who is health conscious and food loving.

Recognising Soup’s extensive experience with FMCG brands, Ryvita appointed us to work with them to develop a digital strategy, including the relaunch of their website, as part of a wider above-the-line and below-the-line campaign.

We wanted to diversify the brand’s appeal by suggesting ways Ryvita products can provide an inclusive eating experience: lunchtimes which are both social and healthy. Working alongside Ryvita’s ATL and BTL agencies we promoted this versatility with a campaign and site that supported the proposition that Ryvita products are for everyone who enjoys good food, a healthy approach to life and sociability: Ladies That Crunch.

We recognised the audience’s need to associate the product with ‘real’ women, four ‘real life’ characters were cast to champion the brand and the product potential.

We created a site that brought the life of the four characters from the Ladies That Crunch TV advertising to life online. It lifts the look of feel of the brand online, celebrates the products and their versatility and is highly content driven. This content is skewed towards a healthy approach to lifestyle and developing a positive body image, rather than towards the traditional and retrograde dieting perception with which the brand has long been associated.

Insuring that the focus is one of health, happiness, celebration and taste: The site is designed to encourage visitors to explore and interact with the brand: the Tasty Toppings section was created to showcase the creative usage possibilities of Ryvita, here visitors can comment on the recipes and add their own tips and ideas. The Eat Well, Live Well area of the site is packed with features and articles based around healthy eating and living and are set to be updated on a monthly basis by Ryvita. Also within the section, Ryvita invite users to share their own ‘Top Tips’, so their commitment to engaging with their audience, to really ‘socialising’ their products, is apparent throughout the site.

The Ladies That Crunch is the community hub of the site, where visitors are encouraged to sign up to the newsletter and share a ‘Mini Moment’ from which they can get 50p off their next purchase of a multipack of Ryvita Minis.

Finally, the Ryvita tins have always been popular, for their design and as an easy way to keep Ryvita fresh. However, previously the complicated claiming process was a barrier to sales. The new site remedies this as the tins are now available to purchase online, a first for Ryvita.

Already the site has received more visitors than the previous month and, importantly, they are engaging with the site, commenting on the recipes, signing up to the newsletter and purchasing tins.

View project