Well, we’ve been particularly busy over the last few months and our efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. The guys over at the Scottish Advertising Awards have nominated one of our projects.

The HALO Trust is in the final for best digital website category at this year’s 2010 Scottish Advertising Awards.

What can we say? Chuffed and pleased would be a great place to start, we think! We also want to say a massive thank you to our team and all the hard graft involved, along with a big thank you to our client, The HALO Trust, for letting us create a website that is visual and works best for them.

Here at The Zen Agency, we love it when a digital strategy comes together and it is even better when others recognise this too.  We’re keeping all of our fingers and toes crossed that we can fight off the other competition and get a nice bit of recognition for our efforts.

Check out the other finalists here.

In the mean time, we’ve got plenty of new work to keep us occupied, with a bag full or recent project wins, including:

• Aspro
• Healthcare Environmental
• Scottish Business Crime Centre

Watch this space...

Regional arts organisation Arts and Theatres Trust Fife (AttFife) has commissioned full service digital agency Zen to develop a back-end system which will function as the core of their brand new website.

Zen won the tender after a rigorous five-way pitch process.  The Glasgow-based agency will develop a content managed system (CMS) as the central component of AttFife’s new digital presence, which will be launched later this year.

The appointment marks a major first step in AttFife’s plans to build an online community around their creative work and venues. As well as selling tickets online, the organisation, whose venues include the Adam Smith Theatre, Carnegie Hall, Rothes Halls, and Lochgelly Centre, will use the website as part of its creative development remit, and as a hub for its social media presence.

The new CMS replaces an existing system set up when AttFife, which was formerly part of Fife Council, became an independent Trust in 2007.

Taras Young, Communications and Digital Media Officer at AttFife, said:

“We’re very excited to be working on this project with Zen, which will form a key part of our digital strategy.

“The arts sector can’t afford to be left behind when it comes to new technology, and we are already stepping up our online presence through social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Our vision is for a great website to be at the centre of what we do online, and we’re all looking forward to working with Zen to build a system that’s a stable base for our ambitious future plans.”

Alan Ronald, managing director at Zen, said:

“This is a very exciting project and we are looking forward to working with AttFife to help them develop the services they can offer.“

“By working in partnership with AttFife, we will develop a platform for them to achieve all of their online goals.”

For further information please log on to the current website at www.attfife.org.uk

ASPRO, one of the largest leisure parks and centres groups in Europe has recently commissioned digital design agency Zen, to implement a synergistic online strategy and develop the brand and websites for two of their UK venues.

Zen won the tender after a rigorous pitch process against ten other UK agencies.  The Glasgow based agency will redevelop, design and market new websites for Oakwood Theme Park, based in Wales and also the Blue Reef Aquarium in Bristol.

The new websites aim to incorporate e-marketing; engaging with new visitors and promoting online ticket booking for their venues. There will also be a strong social networking strategy being integrated with the launch of the new sites.

Alan Ronald, managing director at Zen, said:

“ ASPRO is an exciting and fun brand; we are looking to create the optimal sites for them, making use of high quality visuals to create a striking design and develop intuitive interfaces. It's a great project to be involved in and we can't wait to deliver our creative ideas online.”

For further information please log on to the current websites at www.bluereefaquarium.com or www.oakwoodthemepark.co.uk.

Zen launches HALO Trust website Glasgow-based integrated digital agency Zen has launched a new intuitive website this week for the HALO Trust Organisation just in time to mark the visit of Prince Harry at HALO minefields in Mozambique.

Prince Harry visited minefields in the Cahora Bassa dam in Tete province that are being cleared by The HALO Trust, with his visit focusing on the impact of mines on the civilian population. The global risk of mines and items of unexploded ordnance is exactly what HALO hope the new website will raise awareness of. 

HALO, which is a non-political and non-religious British charity specialising in the removal of hazardous debris of war, decided to revamp their site in order to easily disseminate information and showcase their photography for a range of nationalities.

Zen was commissioned to refresh and maximise HALO’s brand presence in both the UK and US, as part of a global communication strategy after effectively providing a solution that matched their needs. The new website showcases and integrates their extensive photo library and brings images in from Flickr instantly and in a unique way.

Alan Ronald, managing director at Zen said;

“HALO is the World’s largest demining agency and we have given them an online solution to show the world the process of humanitarian demining.
“Intuitive navigation and strong visuals are what we have focused on to ensure that HALO can communicate with their global online audience instantly and effectively about the positive work they do.”

For further information please log on to http://www.halotrust.org

Zen, which has been in the business just over ten years, has been appointed to redesign, develop and market websites for Graham MacKinlay & Co Gun-makers and the HALO Trust Organisation.

HALO Trust, which is a non-political and non-religious NGO specialising in the removal of hazardous debris of war, has commissioned Zen to refresh and maximise their brand presence in both the UK and US, as part of a global e-marketing strategy proposed by Zen.

The digital powerhouse not only has the task of showcasing what HALO do in a creative and aesthetic way, but also engineer an intuitive navigation and access-to-information process for a range of nationalities as part of a global e-marketing strategy.

Graham MacKinlay, a specialist gun-maker based in Dumbarton, is alternatively looking to showcase their extensive gun product range in a modern and engaging online catalogue.

Alan Ronald, managing director at Zen said;

“We are delighted to have been appointed to creatively lead and work with two very different and successful clients. The briefs for each couldn’t be more laterally apart but we are excited at the prospect of helping both HALO Trust and Graham MacKinlay grow their audiences online. Online strategy and design are at the forefront of any digital design project and we can’t wait to start getting our teeth into these projects.”

To view the current websites and for further information please log on to:

• HALO Trust website: http://www.halotrust.org
• Graham MacKinlay & Co.website: http://www.gmackinlay.com

SSPO wanted to improve their online communications and modernise their website as a core communications platform and central voice for the Scottish salmon farm industry.

SSPO is the trade organisation for the Scottish salmon farm industry and represents 95% of Scottish salmon production in its membership.

The aim is to become the information and knowledge portal for the industry with a content management system (CMS) which will allow for future growth and addition of new sub sites and sections in the future.

The CMS will have a new communications function meaning immediate commentry on news items, industry news and statistics can be posted to the site.

The website will be developed as a bespoke application providing SSPO with a special reporting tool to provide its web users with an easy way of disseminating salmon farming statistics by region.

The new website, due to launch early next year will also have a web 2.0 media centre with Youtube and Flickr feeds as well as RSS and a members area meaning greater syndication of web content, encouraging more visits.

One of the most prestigous Edinburgh Law firms Gillespie Macandrew LLP has hired us to redesign their two websites, for Gillespie Macandrew and their estate agency arm Hunters Residential.

Zen won the two new web projects after a three-way-pitch and following a thorough web audit we conducted of the main Gillespie Macandrew website in the run up to the pitch. We are delighted to be working with Gillespie Macandrew and are looking forward to putting our recommendations for two new content-managed websites into action.

Gillespie Macandrew’s strong branding and photography meant that we could afford to be quite adventurous with our winning design concepts in the normally rather sobre world of legal services web design.

The new Hunters Residential website will bring the leading Edinburgh estate agency up to the very latest capabilities in Web 2.0 technologies and will greatly improve their property search.

Hunters Residential wanted to create a website which would increase return visits and provide a more useful property search and personalised user experience which will be met through personalised homepages for users based on past search history, property alerts, user files and Google map integration with search results. 

The two new websites are currently underway and are due to go live in early 2010.

The Zen Agency celebrates 10 years of business.

From its modest beginnings, The Zen Agency has expanded to become one of Scotland’s longest standing digital agencies.

This year The Zen Agency celebrates its 10th birthday. We’ve treated ourselves and marked the occasion by launching this brand new (and long-awaited) website which focuses on showcasing some of our best work over the last decade.

Starting back in 1999...

We’ve been at the head of the massive growth of web technology and have constantly been on the move, adapting our skill set to keep at the forefront of new areas in search engine marketing, web technologies and social media marketing.

In the mean time...

We’ve also developed our own content management system software and have provided robust and comprehensive websites, portals and e-commerce systems for our clients using both off-the-shelf and bespoke CMS.

They say variety is the spice of life. Well we certainly think so, having worked in most sectors from the hotel and retail industries to construction, law and finance with companies big and small in the public and private sector. We’ve won exciting new projects over the years with clients such as the Hilton, Chivas, Diageo, Scottish Widows and the BBC and most recently Mackie’s of Scotland.

The launch of the brand new and much-talked-about Mackie’s Crisps website has been one of the highlights of our tenth year. This distinctive website was in many ways an accumulation to date of our skills in creating unique and striking websites. Our concept of the Mackie’s Crisps website, focusing on user-generated content broke the mould of competitor websites and allowed us to show off our skills not only in web creation but in thinking up engaging new web ideas and applications for social network marketing.

2009 has been a very busy year at The Zen Agency with wins that include:

• Dobbies Garden Centres with a blog writing and online marketing strategy for user engagement
• Glenmor at The Gleneagles Hotel with search engine marketing and PPC
• Animations and brand presentation work with Chivas Brothers Pernod Ricard
  
• two new content managed websites for leading Edinburgh law firm Gillespie Macandrew and their estate agency arm Hunters Residential
  
• A host of new website launches for clients such as John Dickson and Son, Credential Holdings, Smith and Frater and the new BBC Days Like this website.

Our focus over the years has been to provide our clients with honest advice for online marketing strategy and a useful, personalised web experience for their web users through relevant and carefully thought out structure and design. Like all of our web ideas, the new Zen Agency website is straight to the point, we’ve detailed exactly what our existing and potential clients need to know; who we work for and what we do and hopefully you’ll be inspired to work with us.

So, here’s to the next 10 years of bringing fresh ideas, talent and engaging new technologies to the digital communications industry!

Glenmor at The Gleneagles Hotel have hired The Zen Agency as online marketing consultants.

Glenmor is the exclusive holiday village situated at The Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder. As part of Glenmor’s overall sales strategy, we were recently hired to design, manage and implement Glenmor's online marketing and the optimisation of the Glenmor website.

We are delighted to be working with the Glenmor sales and marketing team and to working with such a prestigious brand. On a monthly basis we will manage and implement a web copy writing and content optimisation strategy, paid search (PPC) campaigns, SEO and link building, as well as monthly web usage reporting and campaign statistics to help shape future campaigns and monitor success and return on investment.

The aim of the recent partnership between Glenmor and The Zen Agency is to engage website users through quality content and to increase the number of qualified users to lead to more goal conversions. This will be achieved through relevant and well thought out campaigns and working in partnership with Glenmor to develop an overall understanding of the core values of Glenmor.

The Zen Agency has just launched the new Mackie’s Crisps website as part of Mackie’s of Scotland’s launch into the premium crisp market with Mackie’s PotatoCrisps.

Mackie’s Crisps, born out of the collaboration of two traditional Scottish companies; luxury ice cream makers Mackie’s of Scotland and Perthshire based growers Taypack, were launched at The Royal Highland Show and will consist of three core flavours, Sea Salt, Mature Cheddar and Onion and Sea Salt and Vinegar as well as three limited edition flavours, Flamegrilled Aberdeen Angus, Tomato and Herbs and Haggis and Cracked Black Pepper.

The Zen Agency created the concept for the new Mackie’s Potato Crisps website and designed it in line with branding created by Denvir.

The new website features user generated suggestions of how, where and with what to enjoy each of the Mackie’s Crisps flavours and is full of tasty recipe and accompaniment suggestions as well as  event recommendations on where to bring Mackie’s to this summer.

The website concept is about making associations with other traditional Scottish quality food products and events based on consumer suggestion and a focus on the Mackie’s Crisps philosophy or ‘The Mackie’s Way’ of carefully selected natural ingredients.

'At The Zen Agency we are delighted to be working with the Mackie’s of Scotland team on this exciting product launch after winning the website project after a three-way pitch. The website concept using almost entirely user-generated content and our experience in the food industry won us the contract.'

View the newly launched Mackie’s Crisps website at www.mackiescrisps.co.uk

 As part of the commission, we have also been tasked with the re-design and development of the Mackie’s of Scotland website at www.mackies.co.uk which will be launched later in the year.

The Zen Agency have just launched the new brand and content managed website for leading supplier of interior and construction supplies, Smith and Frater, part of the Rowan Timber group.

We created a new brand identity and logo to revamp and modernise Smith and Frater’s corporate image. As part of the project we were also commissioned to design and develop the company’s first ever content managed website. The Zen Agency are delighted to add this new brand creation to their increasing folio of re-brand projects.

The Zen Agency was commissioned the project after working with parent company Rowan Timber on a number of projects throughout the years from web to brochure design.

Visit the new Smith and Frater website at www.smithandfrater.co.uk

Chivas Brothers Pernod Ricard have recently commissioned The Zen Agency to re-design and build their ‘Chivas Brothers Experience’ presentation. Chivas Brothers is the Scotch whisky and premium gin business of Pernod Ricard – the world’s co-leader in

With a portfolio that includes Chivas Regal, Ballantine’s, Beefeater Gin, The Glenlivet, Royal Salute and Aberlour, Chivas Brothers require a new presentation which will be used by the Chivas Brothers Brand Ambassadors and takes the user through each unique brand, covering their prestigious heritage as well as the traditional methods of whisky distillation. The new interactive presentation will be used across the globe and will be translated into various languages. 

Leading garden and homes retailer, Dobbies Garden Centres Plc, has appointed The Zen Agency as its online consultancy.

We are delighted at having been recruited on an initial 12 month contract with Dobbies. We’ve been briefed to create a more compelling and interactive experience for Dobbies online visitors through the creation of engaging, educational and inspirational copy.

The new web copy writing project will cover topical and relevant themes such as birdcare and wildlife, garden care and growing, garden entertaining, eco living and the environment and will include a mixture of top tips, useful resources, recipes and Q&A.

Joel Rendle, Head of Ecommerce at Dobbies, said: “In the current climate it’s more important than ever to reach out to customers and help improve their buying journey online. We’re pleased to be working with The Zen Agency to create a more informative and practical shopping experience at Dobbies.com.”

Our partnership with Dobbies will also see us working on their online PR.

We've played it wise and focused on the safer side of the property industry with our latest commission!

The Zen Agency have been asked to design and develop what is set to be the prime property letting website in the UK. Phase one of the new project is now underway and includes complete brand creation to comprise of animations, a new web design and the development and a comprehensive property search.

The website will be a one-stop shop for both tenants and landlords alike to search for their ideal property and is a timely venture with the trend for letting on the increase in recent months due to the uncertainty of the economic climate.

We're looking for a talented Flash designer to start immediately to work on an exciting new project on a contract basis.

Around 2 years commercial experience would be advantageous although particularly creative and talented graduates will be considered. In-depth knowledge and skills, including:

Adobe Creative Suite 2 or 3

• CSS
• Flash
• Action Script 2 or 3
• HTML

Originality and creativity is essential.  For more information and to apply, please send your CV to info@thezenagency.com

No recruitment agencies please- thank you

World-renouned Edinburgh-based sporting gun maker and supplier, John Dickson and Son (formally Dickson MacNaughton) have recently commissioned Zen to design and develop a new content-managed website.

Zen have worked with John Dickson and Son for a number of years and designed their very first website. We have now been commissioned to freshen up the current site and help maximise the company’s online presence.

The new site will see John Dickson and Son (Est. 1820) leverage their fine collection of new and pre-owned sports guns online as well as their range of clothing and accessories using their stunning photography.

The new site will be in keeping with the time-honoured , prestigious quality of the John Dickson and Son brand (Established 1820). Users will be able to access the ‘Gun Room’ where they can search for guns.

After a tender process, we were recently commissioned to design the new BBC Radio Scotland Days Like This website. Phase one of the new site has now been launched.

Days Like This is a project run by BBC Radio Scotland and the Scottish Book Trust and the new website provides a platform for people to get involved. Users of the new website can easily submit their stories of days they will never forget. The website also features a story library for users to search all submitted stories by title, theme, date and author’s name as well as tips on how to get started writing a story. Phase two of the website is due to launch shortly which will include areas for users to submit their videos and pictures to build an online multimedia gallery.

The Days Like This celebrity panel will make a selection of stories submitted to the website to feature in some of the Radio Scotland programmes.

Visit the site now at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radioscotland/dayslikethis

One of Rome's most prestigious hotels the Rome Cavalieri, part of the Waldorf Astoria collection, commissioned the Zen agency to develop and design a new Flash animated booking system.

Working in conjunction with The Hilton team, The ‘Room Planner’ has now been launched and can be found on the new Rome Cavalieri website at: www.romecavalieri.com/roomplanner

We built the interactive room planner, designing the interface in accordance with the existing website’s design and brand guidelines and structured it into easy stages for the user as follows:

• Select a meeting room
  
• Select a theme
• Select usage and capacity
• Arrange suite
• Summary
• Email Invitations

The floor plan layout is then emailed to Rome Cavalieri event staff who then create the personalised meeting area ready for the day of the event.  The tool help streamline the event organising process for both clients and hotel staff and successfully increased Rome Cavalieri’s international reputation as a leading business and conference hotel in Europe.

The Zen agency have worked with the Hilton ecommerce and marketing teams on a variety of projects over the last year.

We are now pleased to announce that the new Hilton.com Fall campaign has now launched,  promoting the top 23 city destinations this Autumn.

The design of the new POG (personalised on-line group) templates is also underway; These are customisable web pages which allow group attendees to book group reservations online.

With more online projects on the way, we are looking forward to working closely with Hilton's eCommerce team again.

Get your message out!

Social networking is definitely on the up. Facebook is now more popular than email apparently! If you know what’s good for you in business, you’ll embrace this social market and use it to your advantage.

Look at London Fashion Week. These design fashionista’s are now using live streaming to get their creations out there, and fast. This platform spreads the word of their new lines instantly. Online marketing at its very best!

Curvaceous or not, it’s definitely creative and an easy way to showcase your brand. Check out the BBC link now

Get involved, or contact us to find out how you can increase brand awareness.