IFS World Conference

It’s been a busy few weeks.  Two projects have kept us occupied, both in B2B software, both private equity owned.  The first I’ll keep quiet until it goes public later in the year.  But IFS is very much public domain.  We’d done work with IFS back in 2016, and our What’s Next communication platform had been a success.  Earlier this year we refreshed their identity to help bring their ‘for the challengers’ strategy to life.  And then in late August we got the call to help design their World Conference.

There had been some initial work done, but the CMO felt it needed to be better, and we didn’t have much time.  In four days we had three creative concepts in front of them.  On day 5 we were into implementation.  And the artwork requirements were challenging.  Digital and print, animation work, PowerPoint signage (so the team on the ground could edit it) and more.  We had to work with some pre-approved photography assets that needed a lot of Photoshop love.  There was a controversial shift from CMYK to PMS, which meant we had to redo all our print work.  Oh, and continual changes on the messaging.

But it was fun!  Almost like a test to see how responsive we could be.  Perhaps the best example was the request at 5pm to get some copy written and artwork designed for the escalators…for end of day.  IFS’s software can help manage the scheduling around maintenance and so we gently poked some fun at the convention centre, suggesting that if they used IFS they might not have scheduled escalator maintenance in the middle of the conference.  I was on the phone with IFS’s CMO sharing ideas and getting approvals at 11.30pm, and we got there.  One analyst – a critical audience for any B2B software brand – Tweeted that she thought this was “great marketing” so this little bit of last-minuteness really paid off.

And I have to say our design team were amazing in all this.  Every time I felt I was asking too much of them, they reassured me that they felt vested in the project’s success and wanted to get it done as much as the client did. 

Here’s a nice video from IFS that shows the work in situ.