Fifty & Fifty

Please describe your company and your position there.

At Axiom Cycling Gear, e create thoughtfully designed bicycle accessories for all types of riders. Together with our partners, we prioritize people and planet with products made to last.

In my position as Marketing Lead, I am responsible for the marketing tactics and strategies for Axiom and other brands. I conceptualize, produce, and execute marketing activities across a multichannel environment.

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

Our brand was struggling in a plateau, we knew that we needed a refresh to update and bring us into a more consumer-direct mindset. We needed to communicate a sustainability story that had always been hidden in the background of a misguided brand message.

How did you select Fifty & Fifty?

We went through an RFP selection process with four other agencies with chops in brand development in a range of specializations from the outdoor industry, to concentrated sustainability and actionable change experience. Fifty & Fifty stepped up with a strong presentation and portfolio of work, engaging us with a strong team mindset and collaborative attitude.

Describe the scope of their work in detail, including any steps and the final deliverables.

To start, we addressed the project scope and really took the time and care to align our objectives. They then interviewed key members of our team to understand and internal perception of our brand.

Once they had a firm understanding of the direction we wanted to take, they were able to formulate a strong brand strategy and produce a creative guideline for the new look and feel of the brand. This included - Audience research, competitive analysis, vision, mission, positioning statement, and visual brand development (logo refresh, colour palette, typography, photo guidelines and style tiles).

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

We worked very collaboratively with the entire team at Fifty & Fifty - including a project manager, account manager, creative director and brand specialist.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

With the outcome of this project, we have gained major traction with stakeholders and additional internal support beyond our small team. We've been progressively rolling out a small portion of the brand at a time, beginning with photography and language updates on our social media and it's been extremely well received by our consumer base.

We're excited to launch the full visual aesthetic applied to our new website (designed by our internal team, using the guidelines) coming soon!

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

Weekly updates and constant communication supported the collaborative approach to this project. Consistent status updates were able to align with our own schedules to stay on task and on time with all deliverables. We met with the full group for all project milestones - presentation, collaboration, and revision - and we were able to have an efficient and streamlined process.

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

Their collective energy was a comfort to our stakeholders. It felt like a merging of teams, not a complete handoff.

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

File management of creative files was a little bit harder as they were developed in programs that our team did not use. File naming could have been clearer, and production of final assets could have been cleaner - ie. file for each logo iteration, clean colour swatches, font stylings.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the producer and writer of a documentary.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fifty & Fifty?

We wanted to promote the release of our documentary. We Fifty & Fifty at a time where we were months behind where we should have been in terms of preparing to launch a website in-sync with the global release of our film. We had a splash page that was a landing page with a couple of tabs that had information on our executive producers, but that was it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed and designed a website that included a lot of interactive functionalities. The team helped us not only with website development but also with digital marketing and asset creation. Fifty & Fifty managed our mailing list and helped to develop social media assets announcing the launches of certain elements. 

Although they produced those assets and visuals, we ended up taking them and changing the language to suit our brand. The team also did a lot of social media branding and promotion around key dates such as our global theatrical release, our iTunes pre-release, and our Netflix premiere. 

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with a couple of teammates, including Javan (Creative Director & Founder), Braden (Former CEO), Kristina (Former Web Engineer & Team Lead), who served as our main developer, Julie (Account Executive),  Lindsey (Strategist), who serves as our relationship manager, and another teammate.

How did you come to work with Fifty & Fifty?

They were referred to us by someone we know who had worked with them on a film project, and other people told us that they did good work. Before we approached Fifty & Fifty, we had interviewed several other teams, but we were yet to find anyone we gelled with. 

The reason we chose to work with Fifty & Fifty is that their social giving model appealed to us as a documentary. We’re not a typical brand that’s trying to make money and sell products; we just want to create the biggest audience possible for our documentary. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $200,000–$999,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2019 and the engagement is ongoing. I am currently working on other projects now but the status of the relationship with Fifty & Fifty is changing and they're not involved in the same ways. We are now able to hire our own internal teammates to do a lot of the work, so it has nothing to do with Fifty & Fifty.

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

Fifty & Fifty delivered on everything we asked them to and likely would’ve done even more if we hadn’t been working with filmmakers who wanted to keep some control over their own messaging.

They helped us grow our mailing list to more than half a million subscribers. We had one of the biggest films in 2019 and Fifty & Fifty really helped us to capitalize on that momentum to get people onto our social pages.

How did Fifty & Fifty perform from a project management standpoint?

Despite our very tight timeline, Fifty & Fifty really came through for us. There were compromises in terms of what they could execute to the quality that they were comfortable within the timeframe we had, but they were very flexible and worked around extremely tight deadlines with a lot of patience. 

The team recognizes that we are doing the absolute best that we can and at the end of the day, we are documentary filmmakers and not website content creators. There was a lot of managing that they had to do to help us stay in-sync with the required timeline, and they did that consistently, which meant a lot to us.

There were a few times when there were some misunderstandings, but Fifty & Fifty was really great at working through issues and misunderstandings. They consistently lead the charge to work through creative or personal-related problems. We were doing incredibly important work with a fraction of the time that we needed to do it, so we had some challenging times, but we always got through it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Fifty & Fifty really care about our project, which we truly appreciate. We aren’t just a client to them; they are passionate about the film and the outcome it can produce. We work with a lot of who don't show as much interest in our film as Fifty & Fifty does. 

Compared to other vendors, they care about your project and will invest in it on a personal level, which is rare. One of the reasons I enjoyed working with them is that I didn’t have to know how everything was being done. I was able to tell them exactly what we wanted, and they did all the work to make it happen. 

This is great for people in nonprofits because there are never enough resources to do that work. We really appreciate that they kept us out of the project and did most of the heavy lifting.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their modern style of having weekly check-in calls and presentations over Zoom is challenging for us as filmmakers. We prefer to just know what we need to know because we have so much to do. Fifty & Fifty is very organized and will tell you a message over and over again, which is often the right move for other clients. 

But there are times when we are incredibly busy and still have to sit through presentations about updates that could be summarized. But again, I don’t fault them for that because it is important and works for the vast majority of clients. Other than that, they are great fun to work with, and we managed to laugh despite how much work we had to do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about who is going to be your point person and make sure you know what they need from you to execute the project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing and communications at Oliver Scholars. We are a college access organization that prepares black and Latino students for the academic rigor of independent middle and high schools. We assist with preparation and the admissions process, as well as offer social-emotional support after placement. Oliver then helps students find the college that best fits their goals, walks them with through the college application and placement process, and provides college-and-career-related support all the way through to graduation. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Fifty & Fifty?

The organization had an extremely outdated website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fifty & Fifty helped us reconceptualize what we wanted the website to accomplish. Then, they helped us build and launch the site.

First, they engaged in a design process where they dug into our mission and approach to the work. They helped us look at the landscape we were working within, helped us think through the aesthetics of the website, and they helped us think about our users.

Then, they helped us build a functional and user-friendly backend for the website. They handed it off as a finished product, which we were able to update easily. They created a collection of components for us to use to add content to the website.

What is the team composition?

There was a team of people working on the website, but Jacquie (Star Strategist, Fifty & Fifty) was my absolute go-to.

How did you come to work with Fifty & Fifty?

I have no idea how they were found, but I know that Fifty & Fifty stood out through the quality of the products that they developed. The price point was quite competitive, and the promise of a full-service experience was also attractive. Their customer service has been the best out of any institution I’ve worked with. These were the main three factors in our decision.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe that the contract was signed in September 2016. It’s been a year since we launched. We continue to use Fifty & Fifty for hosting and maintenance.

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

Our web traffic has increased by 75%. Our organization has gone through a huge expansion in the past couple of years. Prior to the web launch, we did not look professional enough. The feedback we’ve heard about the website is that it has brought us into the 21stcentury. It has given us a kind of legitimacy that we didn’t have before. The website became the main portal through which people connect to us for services, make donations, and learn about the organization. This is a direct result of it being clean and user-friendly.

The way in which Fifty & Fifty built our website out and the different components that they anticipated we would need were all great. The collection of components they gave us was particularly relevant to what we were trying to do. Since we launched, I have not needed anything more than what they offered. It’s been a great collection of options for us, and I’ve used around 95% of them.

How did Fifty & Fifty perform from a project management standpoint?

Jacquie gave lots of updates on the progress of specific elements of the project. Another team member served as her deputy. That person acted as the translator for how they did the build. She helped the people on my side understand how the pieces fit together, how they would perform testing, and how we could play around with the site’s backend before really getting started with adding content. There was a technical side along with the more big picture management. All of it was great.

We used email and Basecamp for communication. They were always responsive and pleasant, providing effective solutions and ideas. Fifty & Fifty met the goals of the project on time and on budget.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been impressed with their project management and customer service.

I also appreciated working with so many women in the technical realm. I know that Fifty & Fifty is not run solely by women, but, for the most part, our project was handled by women. I really appreciated that.

There was endless positivity. When going through this kind of a project, spending a relatively large sum of money, working with both technical and nontechnical people, and trying to convey the vision to people who aren’t visual and don’t have the imagination for it, it was great having a company like Fifty & Fifty to break things down in a way that didn’t feel simplistic or condescending. They were able to break the scope down so that our team—from the CEO to our development person—could really understand what the overall look was going to be. They were great, and they continue to be great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could have done a better job offering the big picture overview during the implementation phase.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Prospective customers should be aware that there is a design and information-gathering process that may feel onerous and overly-detailed, but they should bear with it. It’s key to them actually getting what they want.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the senior director for communications for a private foundation that runs a number of campaigns and initiatives for a multinational organization.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fifty & Fifty?

One of our campaigns is for a group of mothers around the world. The branding was too similar to other, unrelated initiatives and we wanted our brand identity to be more accurate and descriptive. Also, our old website wasn’t attractive or mobile-friendly and we wanted to completely redo it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They started with a full assessment of our organization, our target constituency, and the message we wanted to convey. They fit all those elements into a brand redesign. They created a new logo, color palette, and overall design sensibility.

They also designed a microsite for a digital fundraising activation we've run for five years. It looks different to the larger site and has different interactivity and functionality. We needed it to work with specific relationships with NGOs and corporate partners. It had to be unique but also needed to relate to the overall brand identity. Users can navigate to it from the larger site or via a Google search.

What is the team composition?

I worked closely with two members of their team.

How did you come to work with Fifty & Fifty?

We were the first group within our organization to work with them. They were recommended by a colleague who knew them from a previous position.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2014 and the latest version was completed around May 2017. We still work with them for ongoing maintenance and minor changes.

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

We had aggressive deadlines and they delivered a brand identity we love. It still feels contemporary and we’re still using it as we progress as a community. We’ve made minor adjustments to the site in the last six months but have no compulsion to overhaul it. It holds its value and our community has doubled in size in the period we worked together. The site is easier to share than ever before and is much more socially friendly.

How did Fifty & Fifty perform from a project management standpoint?

They did very well. It was a really big project that had a very short time frame. After we worked out a couple of expectation wrinkles, they were incredibly responsive. Their technical support is amazing and they set clear parameters around what changes would be included. Their pricing and deadlines were always transparent.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The design is gorgeous and they come up with great ideas. They’re very creative and have great design sensibility. Their vision and integration let us execute our ideas and their coding abilities are significant. We thought that a time difference would be a problem but having them slightly behind us allowed us to resolve issues that arose at the end of our business day. They had a couple extra hours to fix things each day.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We didn’t have the same sort of clarity at the beginning that we developed as we got to know each other. Once we built up that understanding, things went smoothly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure the discovery process is long enough and deliver any information they need. The more insight you can provide, the stronger your end result.