Torque Digital

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a commercial real estate firm and owner-operator. We invest in real estate, and then we service it with asset managers, property managers, construction managers, and leasing. I’m the leasing broker for the company. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Torque Digital?

We had an office building we had acquired that required repositioning and some new branding. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

After an interview process with other firms, we engaged them to come up with new images for the building, a mark for the building, a tagline, a new brochure, a new website, and electronic marketing aspects. It was similar images but just a different venue to distribute to brokers and tenants. Early on, there was a social media aspect, but I don’t recall whatever became of that. The relationship was collaborative. We had a handful of people on the client side with two or three people from Torque, and they presented us with multiple branding concepts. There was an iterative process to come up with—not only the one that we liked, but also the ultimate version of the one that we liked with a complimentary tagline and position statements.

How did you come to work with Torque Digital?

We networked with other brokers we know, asking who they have worked with and who they would recommend. I think we interviewed four different firms. There were two or three of them that we had worked with in the past, and one or two of them that were new to us. Ultimately, we found they were very creative. Some of the things that we didn’t end up implementing because of budget we thought were very creative, in terms of repositioning the assets in non-traditional ways. I think that’s one of their hallmarks. They take a very in-depth, creative look at things. There were other ideas they had that told us they understood the challenges that we face and knew how to overcome them.

How much have you invested with Torque Digital?

We’ve spent over $100,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in the spring of 2014, and the work is ongoing. They continue to be our marketing arm. 

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

I don’t have any metrics. There are so many variables that impact one’s ability to fill an office building. Isolating it down to the leasing agent, the market, the building, or the marketing firm like Torque is difficult. I think that we thought the brand, the position statement, and the tagline that we developed was going to work then. We still think it serves the building well today. At least for the last three years, it’s stood the test of time, and I think it will continue going forward.

How did Torque Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

They did fine. I communicate with either Eric [Co-Founder, Torque Digital] or Ron [Director of Client Services, Torque Digital], and I would say they’re pretty responsive to requests. If a new project came up and they didn’t have the resources, they’ll find the right resources to get it done. To kick off major projects, we’ve communicated face-to-face. Otherwise, we use email and phone.

What did you find most impressive about Torque Digital?

They understand high-rise office leasing, so we don’t need to explain the product or the process to them. They come up with good concepts, and the deliverables are always top-drawer.

Are there any areas Torque Digital could improve?

Have budget alternatives for a particular project (e.g. high, medium, and low) to give the client upfront alternatives to ensure we’re going down the right path. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m in marketing, and I do brand management. Our company was acquired back in 2012 by our parent company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Torque Digital?

We’ve had a couple of different acquisitions and shifts in the organization, and we sought Torque Digital almost immediately to help us with the branding, brand exploration, figuring out the company’s vision and the organization. We have a great working relationship with them.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Early on, they helped us get organized as a company. The company had been around for 30 years and never had a marketing team. The way our business unit is split up is into three different divisions, and they helped us define those divisions, specifically healthcare. As a company, our goal was to brand our healthcare division, and that’s where Torque came into play. Throughout the years, they helped us with the whole brand exploration, brand design, logo design, and creating that story. Then they worked on a lot of packaging on corrugated boxes and general packs including updating packaging, designing it, taking what we did as far as research with our customers, and then bringing it to life.

I would say the biggest contribution to our healthcare unit was our trade show planning. Since it was a newly branded division, it was important for us to introduce ourselves to our industry even though we’d been there for a while. We would have shows in the fall, and they helped us starting in the spring as far as all the planning, strategy, and bringing it to life. The trade show planning is probably what we did most with Torque Digital. We’ve always had an amazing booth, getting compliments from everyone about the design and the structure. They’ve also come on site to help us with the setup, install, and we have absolutely no complaints there. Every single part of the booth, as far as details went, had a purpose. That was always important to us. We’re always very proud of our booths.

The marketing collateral that Torque Digital helped with varied. They did our sales sheets and videos. We had product vignettes in the corner of our booth, and each one had a story. With that, it was the sales sheet, and then it was the video that went with the product that they put together to showcase. They also did some company videos that we would have on loop as well. We had rings hanging, and they would do some more videos and different features that would project onto these rings on the top of our booth.

In 2015, we had hosted something ahead of the trade show. It was just a class that people signed up for, and they produced our binders that we handed out. We created a story involving one of our products, but the creative behind that was pretty good. It was valuable, and we couldn’t have done it without Torque Digital. A lot of what they were involved in at the trade show was them taking that on board and doing the planning and organizing with Nimlok, who is a vendor we also use.

Regarding a website, we had given the business to someone else to produce. It was someone that my boss at the time was working with on a different project. He was very much involved in this industry, and the price was right, so we gave it to him to do, but it was awful. We were less than happy with it. We had a launch that we had to meet, and Torque was very flexible in fixing the site and doing a lot of the work necessary to make sure we met our launch date.

How did you come to work with Torque Digital?

My boss, who’s the director of marketing, had a previous relationship with Eric [Co-Founder & President, Torque Digital] through other companies. She knew their work, and she knew they’d be good. They turned out to be amazing. They were the only ones we were looking at back then, and we gave the job to them.

How much have you invested with Torque Digital?

We have spent $100,000–$200,000 per year with Torque.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working for this company in the summer of 2013, and have been working with Torque since then. With our new acquisition and the reorganization, our new leadership team has preferred vendors that they already go to. It’s been very sad and disappointing, but we’ve been slowly moved away from Torque because of that. It has nothing to do with their performance. Our last big production was October 2016.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

A lot of it was brand recognition, which is what we were trying to achieve. Our healthcare unit was born because of Torque Digital, and people started to recognize our brand in the industry which was important. They made a statement at the trade shows which is exactly what we wanted to achieve, to the point where they were still inviting, and people would come in and talk to us. They really helped establish us at the trade shows.

Related to the website, we saw an increase in traffic just because the website was functional and it worked. The other thing that they helped us with, in addition to sales sheets and some other marketing collateral, was with the design template that we needed for white papers and case studies. As we issued these to customers, it helped with getting some more traffic.

How did Torque Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great. I’ve worked with a couple of different project managers over the years, and Torque Digital is always very professional, and they communicate. If something is ahead of schedule or behind schedule, they let us know. There was never an issue with communication as far as project management. We communicated through email, phone, and GoToMeeting. When we did kick-off meetings for big projects, we would meet at Torque. I would visit them. My boss was working remotely at the time, and she was near Chicago. I think those were my favorite days, the kick-off meetings. We’d spend hours there, throw the craziest things up on the board, and then see it come to life. Torque is a super-creative group.

We worked mostly with two resources depending on the project. The project manager would always be involved or in the loop, but if I was working on the website or there was a good working relationship with whoever was doing the design, I could communicate directly to them. For some bigger things, Eric might be on there, but the project manager took hold of it.

What did you find most impressive about Torque Digital?

I have worked with a couple of other different providers, and it would probably be the creative side that impressed me most about Torque. I really appreciated that. The kick-off meetings were kind of special because anything was a possibility. They’d follow through with bringing it to life. They’re easy to work with. They understood the project and our industry. They’re a great group to work with.

Are there any areas Torque Digital could improve?

There’s always room for improvement. The one thing that we’re still trying to work on is the website. But at the same time, Torque didn’t have the project from the beginning. They had to fix a lot of the things that were already done by someone else. We tried to do a social media exercise for a couple of months to see how it’d go. Our industry isn’t big on it, but we wanted to tap in. The person that was in charge of that didn’t really understand our industry and our customers. I think if there’s somewhere to improve, it would have been the experience with social media.