Develop your brand narrative in PowerPoint? Never. Until it really works.
Steve Jobs hated it. Marketers and business executives want to leave it behind. Savvy salespeople might cherry-pick a page or two but abandon the deck. And designers run for the hills. The haters of PowerPoint see it as a presentation crutch or, at the very, least why your meetings always run over, otherwise known as “death by PPT.”
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Introducing Sequel Labs, a new technology practice area for Sequel
Offering rapid prototyping, design and development of innovative digital products and solutions
“Sequel Labs is about more than simply providing our clients with access to an amazing engineering team for our marketing sites and digital campaigns,” said Wendy Blattner, partner at Sequel. “Not only can we now prototype and build strategic knowledge sharing and sales enablement tools, but we can also develop next-generation products and digital experiences.”
Sequel Labs is led by Joseph Kim, CEO and co-founder of Nexops, a serial entrepreneur with 20 years of experience developing technology solutions. He is supported by a dedicated team of a dozen software engineers, data scientists and product strategists. “Part technology innovation lab, part proof-of-concept developer, we see Sequel Labs as an agile, collaborative partner to our client’s marketing, technical and corporate innovation teams,” said Mr. Kim. “We design and prototype custom web and mobile solutions that address our clients’ unique challenges, from streamlining workflows with smart automation to generating actionable insights from big data via machine learning.”
Sequel Labs’ business solutions-focused approach bridges new technology tools and cloud services to product sales and market opportunities, helping clients with:
- Enterprise knowledge management systems and digital workspaces
empowering employees to collaborate and perform better, leveraging AI-driven platforms to create powerful, customized analytic tools that can deliver valuable insights to decision makers on any device they use. - Sales enablement and brand management tools
that support existing business processes, such as dynamic, visually-rich, mobile-optimized sales tools and interactive, actionable brand guidelines. - Digital product solutions and rapid prototyping
acting as an extension of a client’s technology team to co-develop and iteratively prototype product ideas and use cases that can support corporate innovation strategies.
The creative technologists of Sequel Labs work seamlessly with Sequel visual design, content and UX teams to deliver truly integrated product branding and marketing of new technologies and platforms to our clients.
For more information on what Sequel Labs can do, please contact Joseph Kim at 212.660.7872.
Sequel Labs
Sequel Labs is a creative technology practice that designs, prototypes and develops new digital enterprise products and solutions. From knowledge management systems and new digital workspaces to sales enablement and competitive intelligence tools, Sequel Labs works closely with enterprise development, sales and marketing teams to co-develop next-generation tools that support strategic business, technical and brand objectives.
Sequel Studio
Sequel activates brands to ignite business growth through strategy, content and design. For over 20 years, Sequel has partnered with some of the world’s most recognized brands, in addition to start-ups and nonprofits, each at a critical turning point. Whether it’s introducing a new capability or product, responding to a shift in the marketplace, or connecting with a new audience, our core services in brand design and development, digital and content strategy, help business and marketing leaders harness their brand narrative into a compelling and valuable business asset.
CSR? ESG? GRI?
What people really want is your POV.
Creating a content platform that does more than report on your impact
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Re-envisioning the digital brand experience for a financial icon
Founded in 1982 as an equity research firm, Baron Funds built its reputation on delivering growth equity investment solutions scaled to the long-term investor. Over the years, the business evolved to serve the needs of advisors, institutions and individual clients.
At the time of our engagement, the firm had two separate websites, going to market as both Baron Capital Management and Baron Funds to address its long-standing client segments. Our challenge was to create a user-friendly, value-added, singular digital experience—relevant and tailored to its audiences—that more accurately reflects Baron’s strengths, personality and position in the marketplace. At the same time, Baron needed the site to be fully responsive and easily managed going forward.
The project involved collaborative engagement, including interviews with leadership and key personnel across the firm, to develop a clear understanding of user needs and the desired functionality for the site. Inspired by Baron’s business strategy and unique office environment, we created a bespoke experience that features a powerful landing page with ambient video and showcases their thought leadership. We also provided content strategy and guidance to help the client articulate and retell the firm’s story for new and more digitally savvy audiences.
Our digital team created an easily navigable experience, imbued with the thoughtful yet disciplined spirit of the Baron brand. We built in clear pathways for users to self-identify and quickly access both the information and the refreshingly intuitive account management tools they need.
Visit Baronfunds.com
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What’s next when your brand graduates from Harvard?
For more than 20 years, the Harvard Clinical Research Institute (HCRI) has been a leader in cardiac and other device and drug studies, helping to advance health and quality of life around the world.
And, while the HCRI name showcased its relationship with the Harvard Medical School, it also hampered its ability to build relationships with other institutions and to bring a wider range of faculty and research sponsors through the door.
To build a new identity for the institute, we worked with them to understand the characteristics and values that drove their success as innovators, as well as their goals for the future. Ultimately, we recommended that the name recognize their heritage as industry pioneers and pay tribute to one of the institute’s founders, Dr. Donald Baim – and the Baim Institute for Clinical Research was born.
Don Baim was a renowned leader in interventional cardiology, recognized for his vision and passion to innovate. Positioning and messaging around the name reinforced these values.
We infused the new brand with a modern look-and-feel: the “research lab” aesthetic was left behind, in favor of a warm, people-focused vibe that will better draw the interest of new faculty and research sponsors alike. The shield design, a nod to their academic background, features a cross-stitch pattern influenced by a cardiac stent conceived by Don Baim, and also conveys the collaboration of the institute’s work among its faculty, sponsors and colleagues.
The rebranding effort included both print and digital applications, from brand launch collateral to employee training materials, as well as a complete overhaul of the website.
As the Baim Institute CEO told us, “You quickly understood and captured the essence of our business. Clearly, you have managed the convergence of business strategy, creative aesthetics and an efficient process to understand the business plan, [and our] market strengths. The end product, including the web [-site], has made a most favorable impression upon all.”
And, during the brand launch at a recent trade show, their VP of Development confirmed that “our booth and accompanying story was unbelievably well received. So many people from all parts of the industry and the world came over to talk about Don Baim, [and] the impact he had on them.”
Reinvented careers site attracts fresh talent to a centuries-old global bank
Founded in 1856, Credit Suisse has grown into a global private and investment banking behemoth with operations in more than 50 countries and 48,200 employees from more than 150 different nations.
But their online efforts to recruit new talent — essential to the bank’s ongoing evolution and success — were hampered by an online presence that had grown as complex as the institution itself. More than 60 separate recruitment sites, tailored to specific regions and geographies, lived under the Credit Suisse umbrella, causing career-seekers to get lost in the labyrinth of a frustrating navigation structure.
Credit Suisse challenged Sequel to make it better — and make it fast, with a mandate to launch the reimagined site before the 2016 college recruiting season.
Our information architects got to work, reducing redundancies and complexities in the content, and consolidating them into a single, seamless digital experience designed to serve the client’s needs both globally and locally. Then Sequel led all design and photography efforts, including the creation of engaging infographics that let potential employees glean big-picture facts about the bank’s business and culture, all at a glance. In addition, our creative team visually aligned the offline recruiting vehicles to deliver a fully integrated campaign.
A bold image style focused on the individual strengths and personalities of current employees, putting a tangibly human face on an otherwise impersonal institution. Sequel directed and captured photos of Credit Suisse employees across the globe within a very tight time frame.
The resulting site, applauded widely within the client’s global recruitment community, makes it much easier for potential hires anywhere in the world to learn about the bank’s culture and opportunities, discover open positions that match their skills, and apply for specific jobs — all within one friendly, integrated and informative experience. For Credit Suisse, it achieves the business objective of dramatically simplifying the ceaseless, ever-evolving task of talent acquisition in a competitive and fast-paced financial recruitment environment.
Visit Credit Suisse Career Site