CIRCUS

Please describe your company and your position there.

Porter Novelli is a PR agency in London working for a variety of clients. I work as a Senior Account Executive on the Health team and worked closely with the team at CIRCUS on this project.

For what projects/services did your company hire CIRCUS, and what were your goals?

We hired CIRCUS to help us develop a disease awareness campaign on behalf of one of our pharmaceutical clients, as we had some beautiful imagery that we wanted to house in an exhibition space. Our goal was to create an exhibition that could educate people about the disease, tell patient stories, provide resources for those impacted, while keeping people engaged throughout the exhibition.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Through researching different vendors, we found CIRCUS online and what made them stand out was their online presence, and great examples of similar work they had created in the past. Following our initial call with the team, we could see they already understood the idea and what we wanted to do with the campaign.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We worked closely with CIRCUS to discuss what the project would look like, and they understood our vision very quickly. They developed the exhibition space, suggested content that we should create to enhance the experience of attendees, and delivered the final product on the date we asked.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were three people in the core team, including a creative director and head of VR production.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Although the project has not yet launched, our client is extremely pleased with the outcome, and we look forward to building on what has been developed over the next few months.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

CIRCUS communicated really well with us and kept us in the loop with timings regularly. They met all deadlines they set for themselves, and those that we set, and were honest and open with any concerns / further ideas they had during the development of the exhibition.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They are really professional in terms of their correspondence with us and presentations to our clients. They really understood our brief, as the design space they developed was spot on.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Sometimes different versions of documents would get lost in the email traffic, and on both ends, creating a more streamlined process for version control would've been helpful.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the web project manager at Staffordshire University. We’re a UK university and higher education provider.

What challenge were you trying to address with CIRCUS?

Since we could no longer do so on campus due to COVID-19, we approached them because we were looking to develop a 360 virtual tour platform to engage with prospective students and market ourselves digitally. We wanted CIRCUS to create several UX prototypes.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially went on a design and development process. We did UX testing and gauged the user acceptance of the different UX mockups. Then, we went forward with those developments, and CIRCUS came up with an innovative UX solution that was fully compliant with the best accessibility guidelines.

The virtual tour is posted on WordPress, which ended up being very attractive for us. Firstly, because it provides content management features. Secondly, because we’d already had experience internally with the platform.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with the developers and a project manager, creative director, lead web developer, director of photography, and head of design.

How did you come to work with CIRCUS?

Not only were we impressed with the functionality of the virtual tours, but their high-quality 360 photography made them stand out in the UK market. Also, we were pretty impressed with their storytelling abilities, use of visuals, and the technology they worked with. That’s why we chose to work with CIRCUS across the competitors.

Once we made the initial contact, we gave them the scope and quickly realized we were both on the same page, making us very keen to go forward and work with them.

Additionally, cost-saving was another point of difference for us. Once we assessed the difference in cost between the first five years, we found out that it was less than a quarter of what some subscription business models were offering, so it was an obvious choice. We were still able to achieve a feature-rich and fully accessible VR experience by paying for the development upfront.

How much have you invested with them?

Over the two year years, it’s £50,000 (approximately $69,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in October 2020, and the first phase was completed in July 2021. Now, we’re working on phase two, which will be completed by the start of next year.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We measure our success by their ability to contribute to our online engagement and conversion metrics on our university website. We’ve seen a targeted increase in our virtual open day activities, which has produced an increase in conversions of about 10%. Moreover, we’re conscious it’ll continue to improve once we finish phase two, and the project’s reach will also expand to other campuses.

How did CIRCUS perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed very well. The team provides us with clear guidelines of what we should expect of the project. Our contact with their stakeholders is frequent and friendly, and communication is always very clear. For the most part, it’s been an ideal project.

We don’t use project management tools other than the ones we use internally, like Trello. We’ve done some collaborative work on digital environments, like Google Sheets, but it’s quite lightweight. For communication, we mainly use emails and phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

A lot of things about CIRCUS have impressed us. However, the most impressive thing is that they’ve done a fully featured and unique VR experience that still achieves all our strict accessibility requirements.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d like to see more rigorous CRM integration, but I think that had more to do with us working within our constraints since we’re on a budget.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do it. CIRCUS does a great job of presenting high-quality, visually engaging content that tells a convincing story from a marketing perspective and is also widely accessible across various devices. In addition, they’re definitely more than capable of doing that in a VR environment, so I don’t hesitate to recommend them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Head of Global Marketing for a product line at a cybersecurity company based out of Finland.

For what projects/services did your company hire CIRCUS, and what were your goals?

We asked Circus to film a short film in VR on a cyber attack. The aim was to then upload the film into headsets to send out to prospect customers

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We searched for a VR company based in London and then had an initial kick-off call with Circus. The team were truly fantastic, had a wealth of knowledge and had some great ideas. So we were confident in going ahead with them

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They filmed a VR video in 180. Our deadline were very tight as we needed to deliver the project within 8 weeks. Despite this, Circus were able to deliver at every given deadline

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I worked with Jay the Creative Director. Joby, Head of Production, and also their copyrighter and sound lead.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The project launched on time (in early December) and it has so far generated some fantastic leads for our sales team to follow up on

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Fantastic communication. I am super grateful to the whole team, as no matter what time I emailed, they would always respond (often v late at night). The team are super hard working and responsive.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their level of knowledge and expertise around VR was incredible — I learned so much. Working with Jay and Joby was great - such nice guys and a true pleasure to work with.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No nothing! Couldn't fault them in anyway

Please describe your company and your position there.

Learning and Outreach Manager for the Crossness Engines Trust. The CET manages the Crossness Pumping Station, a Grade 1 listed industrial heritage site in S.E London

For what projects/services did your company hire CIRCUS, and what were your goals?

We wanted to create a virtual guided tour of Crossness to engage audiences on-line. Our goal is to monetise this tour offer so providing a high quality product is essential to achieve this.

How did you select CIRCUS and what were the deciding factors?

Researched and met with several production companies working in the field. Circus offered us valuable suggestions and guidance on producing the best user experience for our audiences.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Circus shot aerial drone footage and 360 photographs of the exterior site and interior spaces adding archive material and video footage at key points to create a rich, visual 'journey' through the site.

How many people from the CIRCUS team worked with you, and what were their positions?

3

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Trust members are delighted with the tour. We did some initial testing with audiences in the tour development stage and have scheduled further evaluation sessions with testees in the coming weeks.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

This was a step into the unknown for us, Circus is always available to answer any queries or concerns.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The stunning high quality visuals

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

The only improvement would have been the weather! Having to reschedule shoot days several times due to rain and still meet the project deadline was somewhat stressful - but we did it!