This is “the making of story” start-up like digital project developed for Discovery Networks Europe. A two-month project from briefing to launch! PETS OF CHAMPIONS is a story about the love for animals and Anatole’s France words are the perfect motto for what we tried to support achieving Discovery project team. A pet’s love can change one’s life. So, we aimed of bringing together some truly emotional stories about champions and their pets: cats, dogs, lizards, turtle, parrots, snakes or other exotic animals.
Belts on and sit tight! 😉
Pets of Champions
It was Walt Disney who once said that “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible!”. For a few years I had this quote on one of my Grapefruit business cards. I still believe it and love it! In a way, I think it always had something to do with the kind of projects I got involved over the years, namely challenging ones although for different reasons. Pets of Champions project is no exception!
The way I see it, my personal challenge was to help Discovery launch a digital project in less than two months, yet without counting on too many resources. That meant choosing the tech platform, deciding on User Experience (UX) and information architecture (IA), defining content strategy, content development, social media and so on. And, of course, also manage the unexpected, but that comes with the territory!
The Big Idea
It all started with one of Discovery Networks’ internal competition. As Delia Dobrițoiu, Creator, Director and Producer of “Pets of Champions”, everything started with:
The Objectives
One can only hope! 🙂
The Client wanted to try something new. Something they never tried before, namely to test the concept for a new type of show. What better way to test it, if not by taking advantage of the digital channels? But, the Client did not want to settle with testing a new TV show concept. Discovery also team wanted to inspire people and engage them into the conversation. Get the share their own stories!
Therefore, “Build your own Olympic moment!” became a driving principle. Yet, sport champions had to be brought on board and that’s exactly what happened. Olympic winter game champions such as Julia Dujmovits (snowboarder), Anke Woehrer (snowboarder), Šárka Strachová (alpine ski) and Konrad Niedźwiedzki (long track speed skater) agreed to share their pet stories.
The plan was for these admired champions to start the conversation. Next step was to bring ordinary people to share their touchy pet’s stories.
The Challenges
As is the case with real business life, even really great projects that are totally worth face different types of challenges. This is also the case with Pets of Champions. Basically, we promised to help Discovery team launch a digital project in less than two months. That meant choosing the tech platform, deciding on User Experience (UX) and information architecture (IA), defining content strategy and development, social media and so on.
And, of course, also manage the unexpected, but that comes with the territory! For many of you, I am sure this will sound familiar. Briefly, these are the ones we had to overcome:
- LAUNCH DATE/ TIMEFRAME — We only had 90 days till launch when we started talking about the project. By the time papers were signed and project requirements and deliverables agreed on, we were left with less than 60 days till launch date.
- LIMITED HUMAN RESOURCES— overall, across the development of the project there was an average of 4 part-timers involved, including Producer & Creator Delia Dobritoiu.
- BRANDING — We had the naming, yet we needed to create the brand identity of the project and all visual elements library.
- USER PERSONA — It was vital to define relevant user personas so that the whole team have a clear understanding and empathy to understand the users’ needs and goals.
- CONTENT AVAILABLE — we had hundreds of hours of raw footage, yet much of the material was not finalized: video intros, logo, brand design elements, links had to be added and last edits to be done.
- BUDGET — Given the fact that this was a “last-minute” approved project, never included in the annual budget, we could not count on huge amounts to spend. Therefore, we had to carefully plan every penny we had.
A 2 monthS ready to Launch Project? Are you SERIOUS?!
MVP - Digital Project Approach
We decided to approach Pets of Champions as a startup project. We assessed our resources and defined an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). For Discovery team involved this was something quite new. It showed them a new way of managing a production project. A new way of doing things in the digital world.
With such a digital-by-birth project and limited resources, we knew we had to settle for less than we actually dreamed of. We always had to remind ourselves that “there are perfect projects and launched projects.” Not the easiest thing to do when you have two perfectionists running the show!
As far as technology is concerned, there is not so much to tell. We decided to use Squarespace.com as a platform. Having around-the-clock IT support, hosting and a great variety of web of fully responsive templates were some of the reasons why. Plus, having an easy Content Admin User Interface was a critical factor having neither dedicated nor digitally-experienced people. We had no time for training people, and none of the interns worked with Content Management System before.
Deliverables
So, to summarize the digital and marketing work we did for Pets of Champions project, here it is:
- Digital strategy
- Website production
- Content strategy and production, content management, article editing, creative writing
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Information Architecture
- Social Media production and management,
- Newsletter production
- Digital Project Management
… and a lot more invisible work we cannot talk about it. 🙂
No, this is not the whole story of how Pets Of Champions saw the light of day. There are more things to say about how we made this project happen and the content adventure we had. Until that time comes, I leave you few of the Social Media posts and design elements created for the MVP.
We couldn’t wrap this up without saying a big thank you to Delia for trusting us with this adventure! And to Pets of Champions true heroes — thanks for letting us be part of your amazing journey!
- Kira & Julia Dujmovits (Austrian snowboarder, Olympic Gold Winner in Sochi 2014)
- Jaws & Anke Woehrer (German snowboarder, Olympic Silver Medallist in Sochi 2014)
- Baloo & Šárka Strachová (Czech alpine ski racer, Olympic Bronze Medallist in Vancouver 2010)
- Macho & Konrad Niedźwiedzki (Polish long track speed skater, Olympic Bronze Medallist in Sochi 2014).