Else & Bang

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Derby Hotels is a mid-sized hotel chain based in Barcelona, Spain, with properties all around Europe: in France, Spain, and the UK. I’m the marketing manager of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Else & Bang?

We’re based in Spain but wanted to promote our French hotel based in Paris. We wanted to consult with a French agency with extensive knowledge of the specific market and our target demographics. We were also seeking the consistent management of the hotel’s social media presence—our Instagram, in particular, needed updating.

What was the scope of their involvement?

To address our primary concern of increasing social media visibility for our Paris hotel, Else & Bang immediately began managing our Facebook and Instagram profiles.

We then developed a longer-term strategy together, developing a tone and style guide and identifying target users. From there, we developed a strategic schedule for daily activities. This entailed creating content and establishing communication lines, generating images and copy, and processing and publishing these materials.  

What is the team composition?

We engaged with Hervé (President, Else & Bang), who exhibited great professionalism. Our primary point of contact was our account manager, Karine (Directrice de Clientèle, Else & Bang), who kept us in touch with the rest of the team: the creative content manager, the translator, and the photographer.

How did you come to work with Else & Bang?

We have a different online marketing agency in Barcelona, which belongs to a network of partners around Europe called Affinità. We asked them to help us find a good French partner, and they provided us with Else & Bang’s contact information.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost so far has been somewhere between $25,000–$50,000. While we agreed to a monthly fee for their main services, some extra fees were incurred for things like professional photography and hiring an event organizer for our hotel.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Else & Bang in March 2018, and the collaboration is ongoing. We originally had a year-long contract but renewed it for another year after witnessing the success of their work.

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

They’ve executed top-notch work. We needed the best content and media for our Paris hotel, and they’ve done a wonderful job of delivering that level of local specificity.

Our Instagram account looks stellar, and it’s gaining more and more traction every day. We’re also happy with the Facebook content they’ve created. They were able to generate content quickly and effectively, allowing us to forgo spending time on translations and supervision.

How did Else & Bang perform from a project management standpoint?

We were worried about this at the beginning, given our different locations and language barrier. It turns out that Else & Bang ensures great communication with us, so we didn’t have any problems at all. They’re always available.

We communicate at all times of the day, by email, phone, Skype, or conference call. They’re always open to having in-person meetings as well, in either Paris and Barcelona.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their creativity is one of their strongest suits. They went above and beyond in delivering content that we’d never seen before in the hotel segment. Collaborating with them has been extremely interesting because they provide an endless flow of good suggestions. While we didn’t take up all of their ideas, we were thrilled with all of their creative proposals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re very happy with them. Content could be delivered in a more timely manner, but we understand that that’s very difficult to accomplish with social media since things have to be modified last-minute to conform to the latest trends.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to take full advantage of the availability of the team, and get as many meetings with them as possible. Share all of your available in-house information. Else & Bang will deliver some great initiatives based on all that you give them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the vice president of business development at ASTROCAST, a nanosatellite constellation based out of Switzerland.

What challenge were you trying to address with Else & Bang?

We needed to redo our website and add information prior to a major trade show.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had the content we wanted, so Else & Bang came up with the website concept and design. They built it from scratch, creating a novel layout and using CSS to meet specific requirements. We also had them redesign our logo and develop various collateral pieces, such as our business cards and letterhead.

What is the team composition?

We interacted with four people: the owner, a project manager, a designer, and a coder.

How did you come to work with Else & Bang?

We wanted a French-speaking agency that could work with English content. Twelve companies responded to our online query, we interviewed three, then narrowed it down to two. The owner of Else & Bang was familiar with our industry, so we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership lasted from September 2018–March 2019.

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

Since launching, our web traffic has nearly tripled. However, we had a big media push, so it can’t all be attributed to Else & Bang. The website is clean and good quality, and we hope to be able to work with them on another project soon.

How did Else & Bang perform from a project management standpoint?

Even though they had to work in two languages, they managed their tasks well. We used Skype to communicate across teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They had extensive knowledge of our business and understood what we wanted to accomplish. Their design skills and their subject matter expertise made them a great partner.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of any areas of improvement.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Maintain good communication and have thorough documentation. Agree to project deadlines and make sure everyone is on the same page.