Case Studies on Best Practice in External Marketing Communication. [COMPANY 2] Intdea

Transcription

1 Case Studies on Best Practice in External Marketing Communication Cases on [COMPANY 2] Intdea Written in April, 2015 by the Spain, León team: Sarah Rebeyrotte and Marita Schneider

2 Company2: Domestic market focus on the market for less than 10 years Intdea Introduction of Intdea Owner and founder of the company David Abril created his company 3 years ago in León where he was born and lives at the moment. The company name reflects the idea behind the company which is Internet + Idea. David started to work when he was 14 in a software company here in Spain. Quickly he became a consultant of computers. He decided to study in Madrid in the American university. He got the possibility there to study a year in California where he took courses on international business and marketing. At the meanwhile he started to work for an association which brought together university students and companies. They were developing products which was sold to companies. When he returned from the States he went back to the company where he used to work and when the crises has arrived to Spain he decided to start Intdea. In these days he is teaching in the University of León in English and he has courses in Spanish. David explained that teaching is highly influencing innovation and his company as well. Through teaching he learns a lot and many ideas can be used in the work field as well. He as well can use his experience and teach the students through different activities. One of the activities he highlighted is the dance class for the students. Students get professional dance class where they learn a part of a choreography and they have to finish it in a innovative way with the help of Youtube. He told us that dance and Youtube made a lot of innovation and that was the point when people recognized the importance of the Youtube videos. The other benefit of teaching is that students get to know the company and he is giving possibilities to make practice in Intdea.

3 The company The company started as a startup platform where people could gather their ideas to start new businesses. Later David recognized that they are good in marketing and that they can help for other companies in this field. Therefore the company is focusing already only on marketing. The company has 3 departments. The first part is strategy which includes giving consultancy for companies about their strategy in Spain. The second department is IT which is focusing on software development to help companies to be more profitable. And the third part is the marketing department where they are searching new solutions for the companies. Intdea owns a shop in León where they sell handmade works following the handmade and green philosophy. They entered to this business to growth, to try new things and to keep them entrepreneurs with such a products that they believe have a value. Although this shop is not the main business of the company. There are 8 employees at the moment working for Intdea and when there is more work they usually contract 2 other persons. The structure of the company is unusual as even David is the owner of the company he has a boss above him. The reason behind is that he has many courses in the University and he can t stay every day in the company and follow all the projects. Every project is managed by one person and he/she should ask help from the other departments. Advertisement The company is hardly advertising itself. If they use something is mostly specialized magazines where they can reach their target group or in the radio which is focusing on this region. He believes that the products they are creating are advertisement itself and their experiences show that the clients are coming to give them the projects. As they are working mostly in Leon it isn t hard to reach the target group because the city is small and everybody knows everybody. A big changing point was when they started to

4 work with a famous Spanish singer, creating to her a website, social sites and design a strategy to sell tickets for her concerts. It brought many clients and recognition. Critical events in the company operation David started the company alone therefore the first critical event was to create his team. The first person who joined him was the lady who is now the manager of the company. The next persons were the designers and the video producer. Every critical point is around the team if they can work successfully together or not. There were changes always to find an office or new clients, but these are far not that important than the team. Future of the company Intdea would like to grow, mostly in Spain, but there aim is not to be the biggest advertising and marketing company. They would like to keep producing excellent service and at the meanwhile having fun what they are doing without stress and pressure. Intdea still would like to growth, but in a way that customers are coming to them because they are satisfied with their services or they appreciate their previous works. Later on they have plans to open for foreign markets as well to challenge themselves and open to the whole Spanish market. Although they would like to open it is important for them to keep the company friendly, a place where the employees are happy to work and stress free. National/ International recognition The company appeared in newspapers in national level. For example in 2015 the company made the marketing and strategy for the Startup weekend in Leon which was published in regional newspapers and many online sites. As the company is doing marketing for many companies through the clients they are published. Social responsibility

5 David PHD was conducted about social responsibility therefore they are trying to implement it in the company. They are focusing how to make some contribution in the society. Intdea is giving the possibility to Startup companies to have free consultation with them. They help them to build their strategy, marketing, define who the customers are and how to reach them. Every week theses companies can come for a visit and ask help from the professional team. The company believes that for every project should have a chance. Most of the startups are online businesses. So far they had already Startup projects. Some of the projects went well and they are still working of course some of them failed. The last project they did is a webpage and strategy for a photographer to reach more customers. The projects which were successful are beneficial for Intdea as well as when they need some marketing solution or any service the company can provide these startups are coming back to them. Cultural issues In the north of Spain the people are generally very closed and it s really hard to gain their trust. The company has to deal with this every day and it makes difficult at the beginning to work with the new customers. Until the customers don t trust on the work of Intdea there are many complications. As David lived in the States where people were willing to share their ideas it was new for him that people are that closed in the north of Spain. They are trying to give time for the clients and showing them their reference works to win their trust. What makes Intdea an entrepreneurial company? How innovative are they? The biggest value of the company is that they have a deep knowledge about online marketing and they can mix it with the traditional marketing. When they are creating a website they know how to put the information, the content in a way that people would understand it and at the meantime they can prepare it with the help of different software in an attractive way. Most of the company has the knowledge only in one field namely online or traditional therefore there are no real competitors of Intdea. David

6 explained us that the most important is the team that he created which gives this advantage to the company. His team is working in such a way that 1+1 makes 3. When it comes to create something new all the departments are getting together and from different point of views they are putting together the new products. All the employees have a voice and the same rights to judge or accept a product. David has a deep knowledge of horizontal managing and open innovation what he is using in Intdea to make the team work efficient. The office space was designed for this purpose as all the employees including the manager of the company and David is working in the same room. It helps them to share easier the ideas and get inspired by each other. They believe that they are more innovative than other companies, because they teach innovation and they can try the new methods, technologies what they teach. They use also many resources where they get ideas for innovation. Moreover David explained us that the companies flexibility makes them innovative and entrepreneur. Even they have a business model and idea how to work, what to do they are changing according to the new trends. To stay innovative the company has to react to the changes quickly therefore all the team and the managers have to be very flexible. The personality of David makes the company already innovative as he is always open for new ideas, changes, traveling and see the world from different perspectives.

7 What makes Intdea en example of best practice with regards to external marketing communication? How are these practices implemented? Intdea has several projects that helped the company to market itself. As I mentioned above the company is not using own advertisements, but they attract the customers by their projects and in this way the customers are coming to give them new projects. A successful project was the marketing strategy and website creation of the world famous handball team called Ademar. They received a lot of positive comments and appreciation of the webpage. Other projects the company is proud of the videos what they created for clients.

8 The videos are aiming to reach people through their heart by telling stories and using history without rational reasons. The videos are getting more and more successful in these days and it is a perfect solution to reach customers. In this year the company was partly the organizer and the marketing developer of the Startup weekend in León. The event was successful, students and professionals got the

9 possibility to work together and develop their ideas. The February Hip-hop event is one of the biggest dance competitions in this style in Spain. Intdea created the marketing and the strategy behind. The tickets were sold far before the starting data of the event which shows that the strategy worked well. It was a big challenge to the company as León is a small city to attract the dancers from all over Spain and some other neighbor countries to come here. In the operation on Intdea it was a turning point when they got the possibility to work together with the famous group called Café Quijano. They designed their website and they created a strategy how to sell their tickets more efficient. It made the company known and it brought them a lot of new clients.

10 How is Intdea utilizing the new communications features? The company is using all kind of social sites for different reasons. The company is creating sites for the companies in Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram. As I mentioned before the company itself is not using these pages to advertise itself. Intdea is using these sites to collect information about new trends and innovations. Quora is one of the main sources for the company to search new innovations and find answers to any kind of questions. Facebook is used by sharing what they are doing and what projects they completed. For themselves they don t use Facebook advertisements, but for their clients they are creating ads. Nowadays according David the most important social cite is Twitter. The reason behind is that there are many information from first person and it can help for the companies and for the customers as well. It helps to give the latest news, to open your mind for new ideas and to find solutions for any kind of problems. As I mentioned above the company is creating videos for marketing purpose. They are usually use two channels: for Intdea they use Vimeo and for most of the customers they are using Youtube. Vimeo is used by reaching a special target, more professional and business reason with fewer videos. Youtube channel is used by everyone where the competition to be in the first places are much higher, but it is easier for the customers to find what they are looking for.