Stardotstar
*Stardotstar create delightful interactive content, tools and toys that improve people’s lives.
We're proud to boast one of the most varied portfolios in the region, spanning from web applications for Europe's largest investment bank, to augmented audioscapes along the Rochdale Canal; from BBC micro-participation pilot projects, to educational 3D platform games for the Cotswolds. What ties each unique project together is an experience that engages the user in order to deliver the clients' message.
With a very small but highly agile team, we're able to pick and choose the right technology for the project rather than the right platform to keep a production team busy.
3i Showcase
3i, a world leader in private equity, commissioned a speculative approach from Stardotstar to improve its ideas and knowledge sharing within marketing and help drive best practice in rolling out 3i’s new globally brand identity.
3i has offices spread internationally commissioning hundreds of marketing items over the course of a year. Co-ordinating and overviewing what is being produced nationally is a difficult enough job but when those marketing activities are multiplied globally, then it becomes an almost impossible task.
How can a brand team or manager effectively overview what has been done to ensure consistency but also brand fidelity? Are the brand guidelines being adhered to or developed too quickly or inconsistently around the world? Do the Italian pieces look part of the same German, English or American pieces? What worked from a brand point-of-view and which pieces of collateral were seen as a success from a business angle? Which supplier company did that great event in Argentina? How do costs vary from item to item, event to event?
3i Showcase acts as a shared global marketing collateral memory. It’s a easy to use, simple to search and easy to see way of over viewing what print, video, events, and exhibition collaterals have been created to support 3i’s business lines in various sectors globally.
By enabling 3i’s marketers, for the first time, to see what their colleagues have done in other continents and sectors. Showcase has supplied inspiration and reference for future campaigns and commissions by it managers and invited design suppliers. It’s allowed 3i to reuse and refine successful ideas and approaches where appropriate but also overview which suppliers excelled at what services in across what countries or regions.
The end result benefits both marketing teams and their external agencies – and has seen a notable improvement in the quality of work being produced.
‘Showcase has made a real difference in how we demonstrate the best of the 3i brand to both our internal marketing managers and external suppliers. Showcase excels at demonstrating best practice for implementing our new brand guidelines on a global basis. The on-line system has empowered our global team to build on ideas and approaches we have created for one market, sector or region … and implement them across other areas of the business. It has empowered our creative and production agencies to identify creative solutions by receiving selected links to projects 3i have implemented – sharing our global knowledge and resources. Showcase is one of the driving forces used to guide our creative and branding standards. We are delighted with it and the team at StarDotStar.’
Carol Brennan, Global brand Manager, 3i Group plc
Services Offered
- Design or Web design
- Film and video
- Software
Sector Experience
- Financial services
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Close XHearmanchester.com
The Rochdale Canal cuts a swathe through the heart of Manchester but, unloved and largely ignored, rarely featured on any tourist map – until Marketing Manchester and Manchester City Council decided to raise its profile among residents and visitors alike. The canal, and the Petersfield area around it, is steeped in history, from the creation of the world’s first programmable computer to the rise and fall of Factory Records. Hearmanchester.com lets the history, personality and attitude of this part of the city speak for itself – and in so doing, bring the Rochdale Canal to life.
Fronted by punk singer and music pundit, John Robb, Hearmanchester.com is an ambitious multi-format project that centres on a series of ten audio portraits. These guides, linked to landmark signage by the side of the canal itself, can be accessed online via a PC or MP3 player or listened to on site via an iPhone or 3G mobile. Accompanied by downloadable transcripts and maps, Hearmanchester.com tells the story of Manchester’s past, anchoring vanished histories to today’s physical landmarks. Designed to fit the devices already in users’ pockets, it is an audio trail for people who wouldn’t be seen dead using an audio trail – but who don’t mind discovering the past on the mobile device in their hand, the laptop in their hotel room or the iPod in their car.
Produced in record time, Hearmanchester.com met with industry approval: the product was nominated for two BIMA awards in 2008.
But don’t take our word for it, take a stroll along the Rochdale Canal, type Hearmanchester.com into the browser on your phone, and listen to a programme about the city you thought you knew.
Client
Manchester City Council, Marketing Manchester.
Format
Augmented audio tour combining real world signage, lightbox photography and over 70 minutes of broadcast quality audio all available from your mobile phone.
Awards
Big Chip Awards 2009
Special Commendation for Best Public Sector project
Special Commendation for Best Use of Visual Design
Services Offered
- Architecture
- Design or Web design
Sector Experience
- Entertainment
- Public relations
Safe and Sound
The brief for this project revealed some shocking research: namely, children from deprived areas are five times more likely to be involved in road accidents than kids from more affluent suburbs. Armed with this knowledge, our client, the Ministry of Transported funded Neighbourhood Road Safety Initiative (NRSI), decided to do something about it. They commissioned Stardotstar to create a road safety pack aimed directly at 10-12 year olds.
We began with the target market: if we were to get hard-to-reach children to grapple with such a serious issue, we had first to engage them before we start on the education. Once we had them hooked, in this case with a series of cartoons and games, teachers and parents would stand a chance of getting the road safety message across. Approaching it any other way would create a worthy educational product – but not one whose message was taken on board by children.
Our own focus groups revealed that music and DJ-ing appealed to children from all backgrounds, so we created two aspirational cartoon characters: by day just two ordinary school kids like you and me, but by night the top under 12 sound system in the Northwest! There’s another character, too, Sound’s deeply uncool Dad. Played by John Thomson, Dad consistently gets things wrong, not knowing, for example, that b-boying by the side of a busy road is not only dreadfully embarrassing, it’s also somewhat dangerous. John Thomson isn’t the only well-known voice to appear on Safe and Sound: the CD-Rom also features cameos by hip hop duo, Metz n Trix, as well as BBC radio presenters Mark Radcliffe and Mark Riley.
Safe and Sound was a huge success. An initial print run of 3,000 CDs was increased to 58,000, followed by another 32,000 six months later (over 90,000 CDs in all – that’s more than a Number 1 single!). Third party evaluation concluded it engaged the audience, taught important road safety messages and was useful in the classroom. And Safe and Sound achieved industry recognition: it was awarded three national BIMA awards (the BAFTAs for interactive media) – seeing off competition from the likes of the BBC, Channel 4, MTV and the Natural History Museum.
For Stardotstar, the project isn’t over. We are currently looking to expand the product into new areas of personal safety, such as digital safety, one of the most pressing concerns for parents today.
Services Offered
- Advertising or PR
- Computer games
- Design or Web design
- Film and video
- Music
- Software
Sector Experience
- Entertainment
- Software design
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Close XExamples of Work
Services Offered
- Design or Web design
- Software
Sector Experience
- Communications technology
- Consultancy
- Design
- Digital media
- Ecommerce
- Entertainment
- Financial services
- Food and drink
- General business services
- Healthcare
- ICT
- Media
- Medical
- Research and development
- Software design
- Transport
