Swagger Magazine

Advaya: A Platform for Radical Regeneration

2020-05-20T23:00:00+00:00

Advaya is a London-based organisation producing media and hosting events on a range of progressive topics such as ecology, economy, spirituality, and mental health. Started in 2015, Advaya aims to connect people and planet by effecting a culture shift towards radical regeneration.

Meet the Founders

Christabel and Ruby Reed are Advaya’s smart, energetic founders. Both with a background in yoga instruction, the pair have undertaken many creative projects together over the past decade, including the 2019 educational initiative EcoResolution, launched with Cara Delevingne.

"Swagger put together a fast, robust, and easy-to-use content platform in record time! Their friendly team kept in impeccable communication with us whilst working carefully through every bit of feedback to bring our platform to life." Christabel Reed

In trademark style, they came to us organised and one step ahead, with a full set of beautiful brand and website designs by Spanish designer Azote.

The Project Brief

Having used Squarespace and other platforms to host media since Advaya’s inception, Christabel and Ruby wanted to bring their extensive back catalogue of audio, video, and written content together under one brand, and provide a comfortable home for browsing and booking events.

The team wanted to build a high-quality website on which they could:

Easily update all text, images, and media
Depend to handle large traffic spikes
Do further work and integrate with other platforms

Advaya’s progressive and down-to-earth mission hit home with the Swagger team, and with a solid set of designs in hand, we were keen to go ahead with the project.

Going Bespoke

Given the originality and high quality of Azote’s design work, and Advaya’s need to create a website with various different page layouts and media features while keeping branding consistent, a bespoke website was a clear fit. The design was also heavy with photography and graphic elements, so it would need careful hand-optimisation to guarantee good performance — especially on mobile.

Swagger prepared to create a set of HTML page templates with hand-written CSS, and some minimal JavaScript where necessary for menu and search features.

Architectural Considerations

Having decided on custom coded HTML and CSS templates, there are still many ways to build and host a website. Templates can be structured and styled for an existing commercial platform such as Wordpress, or an entire full-stack app can be created using a framework such as Ruby on Rails.

A good middle-ground is the static website, which gives much greater flexibility than an existing platform, without the complexity of a web app.

Static websites can be hosted on content delivery networks which are fast, secure, and very robust to traffic spikes. They are also easily updated, being essentially a collection of HTML and CSS files with a build system.

Static was a good fit for Advaya’s operational capability too, as no real-time technical support was needed.

Headless Content Management

Standalone static websites have become feasible for large projects in the past few years largely due to the proliferation of headless content management systems.

Headless CMSs provide all the text, images, and other media for pages on a static website, causing it to be rebuilt as needed. For Advaya, we chose our go-to solution, the rock-solid Dato.

Dato allows us to model exactly the data we need for a website or app, which is critical for bespoke sites like Advaya with custom page layouts and media features. It also gives fine-grained validation of content, which enables us to keep designs looking exactly as intended across devices. We even built a podcast on top of it!

The Finished Article

Working closely with Advaya, we built and launched the platform in just over a month. It was a lot of fun, and we continue to work with Advaya to update and refine their platform.

Based in London, Advaya is a systems change platform, galvanising a culture shift towards radical regeneration.

Advaya Launches New Swagger-Developed Website

2020-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Swagger is proud to announce the launch this week of a new website from our friends Christabel and Ruby at Advaya (formerly Advaya Initiative).

Advaya partnered with Spanish designer Azote to conceive of a visual brand and set of layouts for the site that evokes wellbeing, playfulness, and natural concepts. It’s a fun and effective design that serves well to communicate the organisation’s values of connectedness and holistic thinking. The design’s bold, bright colours and imagery really stand out in today’s sea of beige business branding.

Swagger was pleased to step in and bring the design to life as a mobile-first responsive website. Our team developed a fast, static site, powered by an easy-to-use content management system allowing editing of all text and media content — including Advaya’s in-house podcast.

Swagger technology partner Dan Halliday said:

“I’m really pleased with how the project turned out! Christabel and Ruby are a great team to work with, and they really know how to communicate their vision.”

Because we believe Advaya is destined for big things in 2020, we knew that the site needed to perform well under traffic spikes for popular content. Our static-first approach to web hosting means the site can handle influxes of traffic and continue without sudden downtime or major cost increases.

We’re happy that organisations like Advaya continue to see the value of bespoke design and the flexibility and performance benefits of hand-built websites and working with a real technical team. We look forward to seeing where they go next, but in the meantime take a look at their latest featured media, and browse their upcoming events to see what they’re about.

Based in London, Advaya is a systems change platform, galvanising a culture shift towards radical regeneration.

Magic Flip Cards: Solving A Common Sizing Problem

2020-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

Swagger technology partner Dan writes for one of our favourite coding sites Smashing Magazine to introduce a more robust implementation for animated flip cards on the web.

Visit Smashing to read the full tutorial.

Why Use Video in B2B Marketing?

2019-06-15T23:00:00+00:00

For too long, we have been whispering about things like feelings, sentiment, and emotion in B2B marketing. Well now is the time to turn these whispers into a roar and transform business to business marketing. Marketing that has for too long been dull, fact-based and highlight driven. It may seem that a company will buy from a logical position; however, the person purchasing does not think their way to a sensible solution. Instead, we feel our way.

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou

If we can make the purchaser feel emotions and make a connection with the brand as a person, then they will justify the feelings with facts later.

B2B needs to start using storytelling in their marketing just as much as B2C does. When we listen to a presentation of facts and stats, we only stimulate the left side of the brain. This area only deals with language and logic. However, when we hear a story rich with meaning and visually vibrant, then both sides of the brain are activated. The right side (the creative half) is captivated and stimulated. Stories pull us in and facilitate emotional experiences, and once you've made someone feel those emotions, they won't forget. That feeling stays with us, and we associate it with the brand that made us feel that way.

Video the best way to form these relationships with your audience through emotional connection. That's because the video is a medium to which we are hardwired to respond. When your viewers watch a video or engage with a story, the viewer's emotions start to mirror what's on-screen. (Think of the fear you feel in your gut when you watch a scary movie.)

The most effective videos will play directly to the emotions of your audience; this is why the story is king. If you combine the right story with the correct format, then you'll have emotionally resonating branded content that will connect buyers to you.

Why Do You Need Content Marketing?

2019-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

If you sell B2B, then you need content marketing as part of your overall strategy. Cisco is estimating that by the end of this year, 80% of all web traffic will be video. If you're not creating B2B branded content, chances are your competitor already is. On average, B2B businesses allocate a quarter of their marketing budgets to content creation marketing.

Allocate a set budget the first year you create some content marketing, reinvest any return on investment this brings for the next couple of years, which should then allow your content channels to stand alone.

70% of B2B content marketers say their organisation's content marketing is much/somewhat more successful compared with one year ago. Tereza Litsa, Search Engine Watch

Any marketing campaign works for video production. Question and answer sessions, product demonstrations, filming on the job or filming regular webcasts. I guarantee that your target audience will find interest in parts of your business.

The next step is to analyse what type of content your audience would want to see. Once you figure this out, then create the highest quality content for your budget and work smarter to get the most bang for your buck. Longer videos can be cut down for social media posts or emails.

All videos increase social trust as video is an emotional medium, it helps connect with your customer. A well-produced video with a message which is honest and thought through will help increase business and hold onto those new customers.

Give People What They Want

2019-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

Not everyone is the same. We all learn in different ways; some of us learn better through visual, auditory or even interactive styles. Businesses must be conscious of this when they produce content.

It's not enough anymore to simply write an article or create a press release to communicate with your customers. We now need a 360° strategy from video to podcasts, from websites to working with influencers.

"I do not regard advertising as an entertainment or an art form but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you find it creative. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product." David Ogilvy

There is always a focus on written advertising online because that's what's indexable. Try videos with the text transcribed released on social media. Record your written blogs as podcasts so people can listen to your message.

Add information graphics to visually represent your company and show people what you want to tell them. Keep mixing up your medium and put yourself in front of a new audience.