May 11 2012

The “enchanted era” is a French expression (originally, “la parenthèse enchantée”), describing a period of some twenty years between the 60s and the 80s. It started with the invention of the birth control pill. For the first time in history, women gained control of their own bodies and could actually choose if and when they would get pregnant. The effect of women’s emancipation and the resulting sexual revolution went far. They altered societal values like the nature of relationships between men and women and even of working ethics (in the context of a continuous economic boom). Later, the spread of AIDS in the 80s and the rise of unemployment, brought an end to this careless period, one which brings up nostalgic memories for those who lived through it. A similar kind of an enchanted era is about to end on the Internet.

The enchanted digital era started when the one described above came to an end. It all began in the 80s when corporate computing made its first steps, pioneered by IBM. This was also the time when Apple introduced its first microcomputer, and Microsoft presented its first personal computers. At this point in time, the Internet was only used for military applications and for scientific research.

During the 90s, computers first became a consumer good, now available to the wide public. Suddenly, the word “computer” did not only infer a gigantic mainframe machine, but there were new forms out there, such as the micro-personal computers, or simply PCs. IBM was pushed aside by Microsoft, which equipped (almost) all its computers with its newly-developed operating system, known as Windows. Yet, the software world was in need of much more significant investments than those made by a few pioneers. As for the Internet, it remained an experts-only arena, although at this point the Web already existed, with emerging products like Netscape. Even the first personal assistants, such as Newton and Palm, had already made their first appearance in the market.

The first decade of the 21^st century is the one which sees the reign of the Web. Google replaces Microsoft as the market leader (although the latter’s Internet Explorer continues to dominate the field of browsers) and the enchanted digital era begins: the Web is now based on solid foundations; on technologies which are widely accessible. A new virgin land is found; a territory with no entry barriers. The fact that (almost) anyone could create a website or launch a service created a startup frenzy, with Facebook standing out as the Web’s greatest success story. Apple comes back from its ashes, although its online services (like iTools, Dot Mac, and MobileMe) were still far from anything spectacular. Indeed, the burst of the dot-com bubble, and the 9/11 attacks that followed, slowed down the development of the Web. Yet, it was this decade which brought about an unprecedented wave of creativity, none of which would have been possible if it weren’t for the anarchic and decentralised system of the Internet.

Today’s landscape is again somewhat different. The 2010s will probably be remembered for the extensive use of mobile devices, smartphones, and of permanent Internet connection. The Net is now dictated by several giants who set the rules and impose them on all others. Google, along with its various services, remains the undisputed master of the Web. It is thus absolutely imperative to take into account the complex algorithms of this giant search engine and its way of prioritising digital information – in order to exist online and remain somewhat relevant. Facebook became a daily activity for hundreds of millions, thus having a great impact on our social interactions (like the disappearance of anonymity). Anything is now allowed… as long as you follow a few basic guidelines.

Apple did not only make a brilliant comeback; the company developed an entirely separate “ecosystem” of products which speak their own unique language to one another. It is thus impossible to put forward a new application or a podcast on the AppStore or iTunes without surrendering to the Apple hegemon. In sum, the aspiration for total freedom which prevailed during the dawn of the Internet has been replaced by a rather codified environment, one which is much more predictable. And yet, perhaps this is a necessary price for having large enterprises invest in interactive media and turn the Internet economy into a perennial one.

Of course, there will always be room for smart innovators and entrepreneurs who will introduce new products. But there is a long way to go until such new players could challenge the existing hegemony of the big ones. The latest success stories of startup companies prove exactly that. Zynga and Playfish were both entirely designed to fit the Facebook ecosystem. Angry Birds is an AppStore creature, and YouTube was very quickly caught into the world of Google. An important trend in the history of new technology is thus facing an end. Is this good news or bad news? We’ll find out soon…

*Translated from its original version in French

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May 4 2012

Football fans in Belgium and around the world can now enjoy the new website of the Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA). BelgianFootball.be was created by The Reference, a Ghent-based full-service digital agency, and part of the Emakina Group.

A site to experience today’s football

The Royal Belgian Football Association exists since 1895 and represents all football clubs in Belgium. Each football season, the Association organises no less than 300,000 football matches for 2000 teams. Its ambassadors, the Red Devils, represent it internationally, attracting a lot of web attention. The Belgian Football Association has been active on the web for many years with the site footbel.com (included in the CIM Metriweb reports). Players, from the highest to the lowest leagues, and their supporters, use this site extensively. But they’re not alone. The site is also commonly used by referees, trainers, clubs, board members, stewards and volunteers, sponsors etc. A match is a lot more than 22 players on a field running behind a ball… As a full-service digital agency, The Reference convinced the Association of their web approach in synchronicity with the further professional development of the sport in Belgium.

Caught the football bug? Build your own website!

The project posed some interesting challenges. The new RBFA website had to accommodate large traffic volumes, while delivering massive amounts of information to the entire football community.  Thanks to the smooth integration with the RBFA’s databases and its existing backend, you are a click away from all information on teams, upcoming matches, and more!

To make the web experience fun and user friendly, the site features a dashboard, where visitors can create their own pages. Each of them can pick her or his favourite team, be alerted of cancelled matches, view filtered news items, and enjoy many other personalisation features.

The new site was built using Drupal 6, with an extensive system of dynamic blocks. Content editors can thus create and adapt information efficiently and with high flexibility, significantly reducing the time laps needed for information to be published.

Anja Cappelle, managing director van The Reference concludes: ‘We are very proud to have created this very lively information channel for the Belgian football fans and their Association’.

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Apr 25 2012

It’s been a few years now that the terms “food porn” or “foodography” have been used in culinary contexts. This new jargon was born in the United States but later expanded into Europe. First, let’s be clear: it’s not about pornography. Food Porn has nothing to do with the art of individuals exposing their bodies in front of a camera!

The concept originates from social changes that took place over the past generation. Cooking is above all a way of passing on a cultural heritage, often one that runs through the family. The redefinition of societal values during the 70s and 80s created a cultural deficit which deprived an entire generation of its own gastronomic heritage.

Logically, the Internet quickly filled this gap, becoming a new platform for sharing culinary know-how. Cooking blogs, typically maintained by passionate self-taught cuisine experts, have thus been multiplying, turning certain bloggers into mini web-celebrities. At a time when service providers are becoming cultural heroes, a manual activity like cooking is at the spotlight.

It’s all about sharing. We often associate cooking with love or affection. Several phases in the cooking process are important: there’s that of passing on the knowledge as mentioned above, then the creative part, and finally the actual action. But the moment which is mostly appreciated by those who sweat above their stoves is that of the feedback, of offering commentary. Cooking is a way of putting oneself at the forefront, of seeking recognition. TV shows like MasterChef or Come Dine With Me joined the online trend, bringing the commentary addiction to a new level, due to the competitive component, as well as the reinforced attention to food aesthetics.

Socials networks now allow any cook to share his or her activities with audiences larger than ever before.  Such “Foodies” (or cooking amateurs) have thus also become photographers, cherishing their work in pictures in order to later share it with followers and friends; a habit which is now known as “food porn”. The term was originally used to describe quasi-erotic TV commercials which presented food (often vegetables) in a sensual way.  Nowadays, the term “porn” can be found in various contexts, often describing a mix of images, meant to lure viewers towards a certain topic (architecture, automobile, etc.).

The more visually attractive the picture is, the more tempting its object becomes, and the more it will generate feedback and comments on social networks. In an era, known for its documentation of our almost daily existence, photography has become an image-based conversation tool.

In 1825, French gastronomist Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote: “Tell me what you are and I shall tell you what you eat” (which later evolved into the popular Anglo-Saxon idiom of “you are what you eat”). Things haven’t changed much since the time of Brillat-Savarin. Presenting in images what we eat is the new digital way of presenting oneself, of telling our story. The time when we eat makes up an important part of our daily lives, thus with three meals a day, food is a major part of our existence.

Mobile technology allows anyone to take a picture, share it, and comment on it. The wide spread of high-quality digital cameras plays an important role in this trend, well understood by brands like Nikon and Canon. Most of their models now have a “food mode” feature for optimising the quality of culinary photography.

Social platforms like Instagram or Pinterest are sometimes seen as the El Dorado of some (very) amateur food pornographists. Users’passion is often so great that it sparks mockery as illustrated in this “Read Write Web” article. Indeed, with Facebook pages such as this, it is hard to deny the article’s criticism… Sharing a picture of your pale ham and eggs from last Sunday is like thinking that your holiday photos resemble the Swimsuit edition of “Sports Illustrated”.

The most commonly-shared food pictures on social networks are desserts (18.3%) and vegetables (17.8%). High ranking of desserts can be explained by their aesthetic looks and colourfulness.  Vegetables, on the other hand, have become a symbol of a healthy lifestyle, a trendy concept on its own.

Different motivations drive the picture sharing of home-made versus restaurant-made dishes. The former satisfies our need to be recognised for our skills, also known as the “IKEA effect”, wanting to share all our “I-did-it-myself” items. The latter, however, celebrates our individual’s capacity of being a “discoverer” of the best eateries, using photos as “proof” on social recommendation platforms. Many mobile applications are currently riding this trend, including Foodreporters in France and Foodspotting in the US. The fact that consumers prefer their peers’ advice over those of brands or institutions is creating an earthquake in the world of food guides. While many of those guides try to join the digital revolution, brands like Michelin or Gault Millaut are the first to pay the price for the rise of food porn.

*Originally written in French by Théo Saulnier for the Emakina.FR’s blog.

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Mar 27 2012

It’s not easy, knowing that we were yet again winners of such distinguished prizes, and to have to remain silent about it… But now that the organisers of the Internet Advertising Competition (IAC) gave us their OK, we can proudly announce: we did it; Emakina won two IACs this year!

Our first prize was for the “Test-Achats 50 Avocats ” campaign, under the Best Magazine Online category. The original campaign was supported by social media activities and a viral clip on protecting consumer rights. It generated a record number of citizens engaging with the organisation, thus making it more relevant than ever before.

We also won the Outstanding Website award for Belgium Rollers’s new home page, designed by Emakina. Thanks to its original funky characters and marvelous design, the website presents to its visitors the fun urban universe in the Roller Parade spirit. All that’s left is scrolling and clicking around this dynamic website in order to learn about the event!

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Mar 21 2012

A panel of experts, specialised in developing the “perfect apps”, presented at the Mobile Forum to an audience of marketers and product managers. As eloquently put by the organisers, “mobile applications have become the holy grail of one-on-one marketing”. The event’s aim was thus to put together those behind the best practices in mobile applications. Among the presenters was Emakina’s Head of Digital Applications, Michaël Totta who spoke of ways to turn an iPad into a “lead generation machine”. His comments and insights were greatly appreciated by the audience, who was eager to learn about the great potential of this exciting new medium.

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Mar 15 2012

This question was raised by DM Institute’s journalist, Eric Van Vooren, who met with Brice Le Blévennec for an interview. The following are excerpts, translated from Dutch to English, of the original article, published in the March 9^th edition:

QR Codes: you can’t avoid them. You see them popping up everywhere; sometimes very prominent as the roof tiles in the Axa ads, but also on bus stations, product packaging, posters, and even on the backs of city buses.

Are these Quick Response Codes really the modern replacement for the reply coupon or the toll-free 0800 numbers? Are they the missing link between offline and online marketing? We put the question to Brice Le Blévennec, the passionate founder of Emakina, voted by Marketing Media as the leading Digital Marketing Agency in Belgium.
I had barely asked Brice my first question when I was flooded with an avalanche of words. “For me, QR Codes symbolise the stupidity of the agencies! It’s a useless, customer-unfriendly gimmick. First, you already have to own a smartphone. But that’s not all. Smartphones do not come with a standard app to scan QR Codes so the consumer has to also choose to install such an application. Afterwards, she or he has to try to scan a code on the back of a moving bus, or on a billboard three meters high above. You need to capture the code very precisely in the frame with your camera, or the scan will fail. Damn hard.”
“I have conducted a survey with the Emakina staff. We are certainly not representative of the average consumer, because all our employees have a smartphone, but less than 10 per cent have an app installed to scan QR Codes. Using QR Codes for commercial messages shows little respect for the audience. Besides, one is usually limited to printing a code, without any call to action. If you give no clear motivation with the QR Code, why would people go ahead and scan the code? And if you go into the trouble to do so, you often find a generic web page, which adds nothing to the initial message. ”

Sometimes useful
“A QR Code can be useful, for example, in a museum to allow the visitor access to more information, via voice and video, on a specific work of art. That is the proper context. Another example for appropriate use of the QR Codes is the Tesco application for the Metro in Japan. There, the commuter can buy everyday products directly online, by scanning the QR of a specific product from a photo with shopping items on a shop shelf. Then, the QR Code offers a tangible benefit. A QR Code may fit well with certain games or contests. Because you never know what you will get to see, such a code can offer something mysterious. This perfectly fits the atmosphere of certain games.”

A better alternative
“For more traditional marketing applications, there is a much better alternative: the shortened URL. It is now possible to link readers directly via a simple web address in your offline message to a custom landing page. And a shortened URL is easy to remember and can be typed in on any PC or smartphone without the user having to install a separate application. An additional advantage is that the offer can be integrated in the name of the URL so the customer already has an indication of what they will get to see.”

100% connectivity
“The QR Code, however, is in line with a broader, general trend in marketing, that all communication should be interactive. The boundary between direct mailing and other marketing applications is becoming blurred. As a good communication manager, here you particularly have to take into account the uniqueness of each medium. A mobile phone (or smartphone) is a device that people almost always have on them. It stands for 100% connectivity: everybody, everywhere. Not so with a tablet PC. In that sense, the two are complementary devices. Moreover, I expect that the tablet PC, just by its ease of use, will catch on especially with seniors. This is a trend the younger diginatives sometimes overlook. So yes, our profession has a bright future!”.

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Mar 6 2012

Right at this moment, Apple employees are making final preparations for what  will probably be the launching event of the iPad3. The mysterious, yet, very-intriguing event will be held at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, exactly one year after and at the same place the iPad2 was introduced to the world. According to the press invitation, tonight’s event will present the successor of the iPad2, without specifying much information about it, thus leaving a lot of room for speculation. The excitement revolving around the promised product has created quite a buzz throughout the international tech community despite, perhaps because, of its ambiguity.

Final preparations at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco

This is why RTL’s web-magazine, “Les Teknophiles” has decided to dedicate tonight’s show to the Apple event, inviting Brice Le Blévennec as a special guest speaker. Brice will share his vision on the way the iPad will soon replace conventional computing, only two decades after the birth of the PC. “Apple is once more writing the book” as he puts it. Further guests on the show include Frédéric Feytons of TappTic, and Bruno Kesteloot, general manager of MacLine. The show will be aired (in French) today, March 7 at 18:45 Brussels time. Click here to watch it live.

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Mar 6 2012

In short, no. Surveys, published earlier this month by SodaHead and CNet, show that the vast majority of users do not appreciate the new Facebook interface and that they miss their good old Walls.  But this doesn’t mean that brands should refrain from switching to the Facebook Timeline. For a start, they don’t have much choice. As of the end of March, Timeline will become mandatory for all Facebook Pages; so instead of complaining about it, marketers should better yet learn how to make the most out of it. This article will help you prepare to the Timeline tsunami right before it hits your brand!

Let’s start with the good news. With its new ’cover-picture’, Timeline is much more design-oriented, allowing companies to visually express their brand identity, using a logo, a product, or a personality. Moreover, the chronological nature of the Timeline facilitates a very rich presentation of brands’ histories, especially for those that have been out there for quite a while. The ability to dig out some old information made many individual users uncomfortable, yet, on the corporate Page level it has great potential. The New York Times and Manchester United, for example, use Timeline to tell their stories, dating back to the 19^th century, in a very compelling way. Even younger brands can still use the Timeline to illustrate their major milestones like launching a new product, issuing stocks, or winning a prize.

In comparison to the old Facebook Wall, Timeline is also much easier to administer, featuring new options to enhance communication with clients. It is now made possible to respond directly to private messages without having to alternate among various pages. In order to distinguish between the various posts, new Timelines features allow ‘pinning’ a post so it remains on top or ’starring’ it for a double-wide appearance. At least as important is the improved Activity Log, featuring analytic tools which allow much more strategic use of social media.

But your marketing strategists are not all going to fall in love with Timeline. They might very well complain and rightfully so. Their biggest concern will be the fact that, unlike Wall Pages, Timeline Pages do not allow setting a customised application as the default landing tab for non-fans. This was an extremely popular feature for promoting special content like coupons or contests. Without this feature it won’t be as easy to reach the same numbers of Likes or email subscriptions. On the other hand, to make things somewhat less gloomy, only 10% of Page traffic is generated by the default landing tabs. The remaining is owed to published links and ads which, of course, still play a central role on Timelines.

Despite what Facebook officials may claim, Timeline was designed for individuals to share their stories; it was not intended to serve as a marketing tool. Certain marketers may see this is a challenge, conflicting with their brand philosophy. Yet, brands too have their life stories to tell. The new Timeline interface will make their stories come through as more personal interactions than the traditional brand-consumer relationships.

The new infrastructure should thus change the way you think of your Facebook Page. Instead of message-board-like Walls, use Timeline as a means of viral communication.  If the Wall’s purpose was to serve as a destination point of as many users as possible, Timeline sees itself as a communication station, from which users can spread ideas by sharing them with their friends.

Think of Facebook as your brand’s online reality. When you decide to have a baby, you know you won’t bring her or him into a perfect world. Yet, you do your best to give your child the best tools to succeed in life. Timeline is no perfect either; in fact, it’s quite far from it. But if you do a good job in preparing your brand to its digital life, chances are it would mature into a popular and successful Page. Facebook is big enough to redefine social networking every time Mark Zuckerberg has a bad hair day. It is up to your strategic planners to adapt and learn how to leverage the new Facebook whim.

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Mar 1 2012

What is GTUG? A GTUG (Google Technology User Group) is an informal meetup open to anyone interested in Google’s developer technologies: ranging from Android and App Engine, to product APIs like YouTube.

Programme:

18:30 Welcome
19:30 Using the USB debugger with Chrome and Chrome for Android to debug a mobile webpage on device.
20:00 Open discussion on the past Android Hackathon on Feb 18-19 (GADC).
20:30 Together set up and play with a Google TV
21:00 Massive peer hands-on hack: add 1 feature into one of the apps done at the hackathon. No preparation required.
22:00 End – Information about upcoming events in March-April

If you want to attend this meetup, feel free to register here

Where? Emakina, Rue de Middelbourg 64A, 1170 Watermael-Boitsfort

When? Thursday, 8th of March, starting at 18:30

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Mar 1 2012

Thanks to the new Emakina-developed mobile App, launched today at the Batibouw fair, Electrabel customers can now follow their energy consumption and expenses using any smartphone or tablet device. What’s even more exciting about the new App is that users can use it to switch on and off their home appliances. So on your next vacation, while sunbathing on a tropical island; you could easily verify if you have left your electric heating on before leaving your home. Or while at work, you could check whether your innocent-looking pet is not throwing a huge house party every time you are out (as brilliantly suggested in the new service’s ad).

But wait! If you’re on vacation, or busy at work you probably have other things to do than checking your energy consumption five times a day. We, at Electrabel and at Emakina, also thought about those with less time to spare. The new service can automatically send you an SMS or an email whenever irregular energy consumption is spotted. This way, if you really did leave your heating on before catching your plane, you will be notified right away, and not by discovering your next monthly bill…!

As a longstanding digital partner of Electrabel, this is the third mobile App we have developed for the Belgian energy provider. We are also highly involved in Electrabel’s website development; web communication; mobile and personalised applications. Our high level of mutual trust allowed us to even come up with a multiple-player tablet game which we offered visitors at the Batibouw fair to play simultaneously on a giant screen.

What makes this product so unique is that it goes further in redefining home automation technology. The App can produce separate statistical analysis on each appliance’s consumption, displayed per hour, day, month, or year! This is of real economic value for responsible consumers who try to lower their energy consumption and their consequent expenses. These are smart features, but above all we made sure the App is so easy to use that even your grandmother could get addicted to it.

The new App is already available for iPhones, Androids, and three other platforms. An iPad version is being developed and will be available shortly. To read more or order your own Smart energy box, check out the Electrabel website.

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Feb 7 2012

The cosmetics brand Clinique has just launched its new e-commerce site for the Netherlands, with the support of its digital partner agency Emakina. The Belgian e-shop is announced to follow in a few weeks.

Clinique is a prestigious American brand offering a wide range of cosmetics, skin care, makeup and fragrances. Each Clinique skin care and makeup product is allergy tested and 100% fragrance free –  crucial in a world where allergies have been labeled the modern epidemic. All its care and makeup products are based on a dermatological heritage: adapted to each skin type and its needs for unparalleled comfort. Clinique has become a symbol of personalized beauty around the world.

The e-commerce business is currently booming: in Belgium, for example, the number of online sales rose by nearly 24% between 2010 and 2011. More and more brands are starting their own online sales service and are moving towards integrated solutions, such as Clinique’s e-commerce site, developed by Emakina.

The Clinique website for the Netherlands has been fully revised and rejuvinated. New headers create added content value to the home page and many other pages. Emakina really did a full website makeover, establishing a direct relationship with the client, inviting female or male visitors to directly buy all products online there and adding some “web exclusives”, all with delivery in 3 working days.

The new site also provides many tips to help the fairer sex choose wisely and direct every person to the product that truly matches him or her. This advice is related to beauty and skin care. It also includes a tool to make your own skin analysis, before proposing the best suited solution.

For the launch period of the site, customers are offered free shipping of the products, plus a free range of samples for their first order.

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Jan 27 2012

by Brice Le Blévennec

English version of a comment published in Datanews.

I surf a lot, the digital universe is my passion. Lately I’ve grown particularly fond of applications to feed my insatiable smartphone, but I still pass a lot of my time every day hooked to a huge screen, to ‘watchdog’ evolutions in technology, explore the web, dig up the latest innovations, sniff at new trends, in short to be inspired.

I must say I’m supercharged with suggestions from my 350 colleagues, who post daily links on our wiki, or exchange them through various email lists, that drive our working groups. As I’m too curious, I signed up for all our groups and I cannot resist exploring each new link I find there.

The experience it offers is broad: from online high impact experiences to sites with creatives’ portfolios, apps integrated with Facebook, interactive videos, games in 3D with CSS3, WebGL or Flash, new frameworks for web development or HTML5, new social networks, fresh online services, with API’s that allow us to do digital magic tricks, etc.. In short, each day of my life is packed with discoveries and I’m a very lucky person.

Yet when I scan the wiki, I notice a peculiarity. There is hardly any link to be found leading to exciting Belgian online work. The Belgian web is desperately boring. There are not many innovative projects. Few e-commerce sites. Rare original mini-site experiences. No Web services or  API’s of interest … In short, there’s not much happening on the web in our kingdom at the heart of Europe…

Yet our creatives are highly respected in the international advertising world, as are our engineers in the field of information technology and communication. How can we explain this striking poverty?

In fact, Belgium is a victim of its size, of the linguistic and cultural fragmentation of its population and of the high cost of Internet subscription and Mobile Internet.
A bit like Switzerland or Luxembourg.

Most sites have to be available in French, Dutch, often in English too and even in German. This complicates the creation and updating of sites. The CMS must be configured with workflows that take into account the availability of translations of content, often increasing costs of implementation and slowing down updates.

This fragmentation of audiences has a large impact on projects based on communities, like networks and social media, when they feed on written content generated by users. It increases their costs of managing and moderating the participants. Very few community projects have reached a decent national size, or else they had to ‘balkanize’ their public by language, as Netlog did.

The small size of our audiences slows down risk investments. To be a profitable venture, investment in design and development must be returned by interaction with a large enough audience, a market of a sufficient critical scale.
For example, to achieve the same ROI on a project In  the french-speaking part of Belgium, the penetration ratios must be ten times higher than a similar project in France.

Imagine the same project with equal ‘traction’, an online service capturing 1% of the Internet audience. In France, it could be a huge success, generating sufficient funds for the startup to develop and grow. With the same 1% adoption rate in Belgium, that initiative would not even cover the development costs; the project could easily collapse.

This may explain a certain reluctance of venture capitalist in this country. They tend to invest in projects that have already proven their business model abroad, rather than betting on real innovations.

Finally, the high cost of Internet subscriptions, especially mobile internet subscriptions, and – although the law allows it – the fact that mobile operators all strangely agree not to subsidize the terminals, combine to slow down the adoption of the Internet and its frequent use.

So in short, if you are a web entrepreneur, think from the initiation of your project to (also) attack a market outside of Belgium.

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Jan 24 2012

ING Belgium is always looking for new talent, especially for its IT and commercial departments. In collaboration with Emakina, the company now upgraded its careers website. The site is like a brand new suit, tailor made, including twenty videos to strenghten the key messages.

Based on their desire for a stronger foothold in the digital world, ING Belgium has started modernizing its website for potential future employees. As part of this effort, the twenty videos place the spotlight on employees of the bank. Emakina was responsible for the production of the video testimonies and the visual modernization of part of the site. In videos on the homepage, a succession of ING Belgium talents sit in the design orange chair and share their experiences at the bank.

The testimonies of the staff also explain the process of developing an IT project – the IT project lifecycle. This way, the bank clarifies this complex process, highlighting that each professional plays a key role in it and is an important link in the lifecycle chain.

With the renewed site, ING Belgium once more confirms its innovative vision, while adressing the wishes of its future collaborators in a more precise and direct way. In 2012, ING Belgium wants to hire about 135 IT profiles and over 300 sales staff for its Retail department. Last year, the company already hired more than 300 profiles both in IT and commercial jobs.

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Jan 23 2012

Starting on February 10th, The Reference is organizing 10 events on different digital subjects. As trend watchers, innovators and opinion makers, they believe it is important to share their insights with customers. Experts of The Ref are happy to provide you with their knowledge and to discuss the best practices of all things digital. You can choose the number of events you want to participate in. Customers of The Reference, Design is Dead and Emakina get a discount of 10%. If you register for all sessions, you receive the same discount.

The series of events starts on February 10^th with “Is social media part of your business”, where you will learn to make the correct strategic decisions in the social media landscape.

On March 2^nd, David Roose will explain you everything there is to know about “Measuring Business Goals with Google Analytics”.

“Strategic SEO for Marketing Managers” will be addressed on March 16^th. You will be guided in getting SEO on-board in your organization.

One week later, the 23th of March, it’s David Roose’s turn again for a workshop “Slicing and dicing with Google Analytics”. He will tell you everything about measuring more with custom code, configuring your accounts and profiles, and lots of other things!

On the 27^th of April, it’s time for Social again: “Social Strategy through Social Listening”. Tom Muyllaert will unveil the best free and paid listening tools and he will show you what you can learn from listening to conversations.

May 4^th is all about “Hands-on SEO for Webmasters and Copywriters”. In this workshop you’ll learn step by step the best methods that will help you to find the best possible keywords.

“Professional Link Building Strategies” are talked about by Nikolaas De Geyndt and Isabel Van Ruykensvelde. They will train you in how to strategically approach your link-building. The date for this event is May 11^th.

Mobile and tablet fans can have their say on June 1^st. Thomas De Vos, our mobile expert, will show you what “Mobile and tablets can mean for your business”. iOs? Android? Windows Phone? Web Apps? HTML5? Hybrid apps? There will be no secrets left when leaving this workshop!

On June 8^th you’ll learn everything about “Conversion Optimization”. Your website might be doing well, but experts of The Ref will help you to make it even better by striving for ultimate conversion.

And last but not least: on June 15^th Bart De Latte will introduce you to “The power of Search Engine Advertising”. He will show you how to analyze and interpret your results.

You can click the links if you are interested in attending one or more events. To subscribe, just fill in the form that you can find on the website. Should you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to contact Vicky Van Daele (vvandaele@reference.be)

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Jan 13 2012

Electrabel launched the first solution in Belgium for recharging electric vehicles. As part of this initiative, Emakina developed the platforms to remotely monitor, control and manage vehicle consumption . The dedicated website allows customers to plan their reloads and to retrieve various data presented in tables or graphs. The result is the optimised management of the vehicle’s autonomy.

Users on the move can also benefit from a practical solution. With mobile applications for iOS and Android plus a mobile site, they can control their vehicle’s autonomy anywhere, anytime.

Emakina was in charge of the development of the different platforms, as well as the hosting.

A new video explains how the Electrabel’s Carplug solution works.

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