Digital Brand Experience Platform
For the trade fair ISH digital 2021, Milla & Partner developed a bi-lingual virtual brand experience platform for indoor climate specialist Zehnder. It combines information exchange, dialog and experience, and responds ever more precisely to the needs of the target groups: under the motto "Pure Living – Healthier indoors with Zehnder", the digital brand experience concept will have lasting effect on the company's communication strategy.
The ISH is the world's leading bi-yearly trade fair for water, heat and air conditioning. Occasion for Zehnder to present new intelligent solutions for a healthy indoor climate and inspire trade visitors with promising innovations in comfortable home ventilation and design radiators. In 2021, the manufacturer's product and theme worlds premiered wholly digital: www.pure-living.zehnder-systems.de/en is a brand experience that enables a new form of trade fair encounter through storytelling and quality of experience - and will have an impact far beyond.
Tobias Kollmann, Chief Brand Officer, Creative Director und Partner„With a view to use that extends far beyond the ISH in terms of time and space, we developed a sustainably effective format: a scalable, digital experience platform that smartly combines emotional storytelling and content on a communicative stage.”
Animated theme worlds
"Pure Living – Healthier indoors with Zehnder" is the communicative bracket for the brand experience platform: It combines "healthy indoor climate" with current trends in health, lifestyle and living and allows for both B2B and B2C communication tailored to the target group. Four different scenarios illustrate living environments that not only create a link to Zehnder's new products for craftsmen, but also visualize the decisive comfort factors for end customers, making the otherwise invisible indoor climate evident. Engaging storytelling brings the spatial digital world to life and translates the brand essence of the indoor climate specialist – "always the best climate" – into the virtually tangible space.
Easy Scrolling, Easy going
How can the invisible be made visible? How can fresh air be visualized? How radiant heat? The animations are not only intended to illustrate the indoor climate, but also to support the sales specialists in advising their customers. The design of the digital experience spaces is kept in a light-footed, illustrative style. With delicate textures and in muted colors from Zehnder's new color concept, the monochromatic, minimalist living situations gradually come together. Elements like the indoor climate spheres, texts, navigation or Rob, the indoor climate hero, stand out and are continuously complemented by only the strong red of the corporate color as navigation and labeling color. With the consistently applied interaction principle of scrolling, rooms, characters, dialogs and transitions build up dynamically at individual speed and set the stage for the next scene. Teasers also take users to further levels at selected points, such as product pages or, at the end of the website, to the indoor climate hero challenge.
Customer Centric Design
Zehnder's product and theme worlds are application-oriented: consumers can browse, immerse themselves and advance their desire for a healthy, comfortable and aesthetically pleasing living environment. Meanwhile, the B2B craftsmen target group can identify with Rob. He´s the "indoor climate hero" who acts as a guide through the "Pure Living" world. This cleverly links B2B and B2C communication and charges the B2B craftsmen level with B2C topics: The indoor climate heroes can sharpen their advisory skills in sales talks with end customers whilst simultaneously becoming authentic ambassadors of the Zehnder brand. To ensure maximum success, the specific needs of the craftsmen were determined for the platform in advance in a design thinking workshop lasting several days. Based on these findings, Milla & Partner created various use cases and a customer journey map to develop the optimal brand experience. Accordingly, formats tailored to their interests now shape the microsite.
Customer Journey
For the ISH, the microsite brand experience is framed with further modules: The B2B target group experience their first customer journey touchpoint long before the digital trade show: personally tailored print and mail invitations as well as a social media campaign draw attention to the brand experience platform. During the event, digital live events complement the program: keynote, live presentations, expert talks as well as individual 1:1 conversations with Zehnder contact persons offer all interested parties an intensive in-depth experience. The concept is rounded off with the "Indoor Climate Hero Challenge". The competition motivates virtual trade fair visitors to delve into the entire theme – participants themselves become "Indoor Climate Heroes", which is confirmed to them by certificate. After the ISH, the content will remain available "on demand" – thanks to permanent and sustainable content, the platform will retain its relevance long after ISH digital 2021 is over.
Trade Fair Transformation
As a premium dialog and content hub, the brand experience platform offers emotional access to the Zehnder brand and interactively involves the target groups: With the help of three different communication levels - information, experience, exchange – craftsmen as well as end customers obtain a comprehensive overview of product innovations and topics, experience the motto "Pure Living" digitally and intensively, and intensify the material relevant to them through discussion formats. The brand experience platform is the starting point of an ecosystem that will last way beyond the ISH – the starting point for the transformation of the trade fair from a one-off brand space to a continuing, effective online presence.
Eva-Maria Freßle, Head of Marketing Communications Zehnder Group Deutschland GmbH„The digital brand experience platform Milla & Partner created for us is both an exciting thematic world and a long-term supporting instrument with which we can reach, inspire and activate our most important target group – the specialist tradesmen – and the Zehnder team with humour. And that has enormous value, not only in these pandemic times when direct contact is very difficult!”
Services
- Communication concept
- Accompanying communication, social media
- Visual design, text
- 3D motion design, production, programming
- Event dramaturgy and virtual production