Success Stories

Your marketing initiatives have a new tool for online engagement and communication. From leading Internet news sites to professional sports teams, Brand Thunder clients have seen:

Brand Thunder’s highly interactive browser themes tightly integrate your website content and features to deliver an immersive branding and engagement experience. And, Brand Thunder manages the entire process limiting resource demands and maximizing your return.

More Details Direct from Our Clients

The Huffington Post – 8x lift in site visits

The Huffington Post is The Internet Newspaper and one of the most trafficked sites for news and commentary. Yet at its core, Huffington Post is a community guided by thought leaders and energized by an active readership that contributes a dynamic flow of comments. The goal of the HuffPost team was to deliver a web-based application that further engaged the audience and helped them become more active users of the site.

Brand Thunder provided a theme that was light on design elements focusing purely on the color sheme and logo of the Huffington Post. The theme also included buttons to the top channels within the Huffington Post web site. The stand out feature, from a user engagement standpoint, was the news ticker.

The news ticker was given the visual weight to maintain awareness without being overpowering to the design. The headlines produced by the Huffington Post editorial staff delivered compelling content and an irresistible invitation to return to the site.

The result was an 8x lift in site visits, growing from 5 visits per month by the average user to 40 visits per month via the interactive browser theme.

Looking for Group – Achieving high adoption rates

Looking for Group, a leading webcomic from the portfolio of Blind Ferret Entertainment and the creative minds of Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza, offers a funny and adventurous fantasy storyline to an avid following of readers. Fans enjoy a tale that’s updated twice a week and bonused with regular interactions with Sohmer and deSouza.

LFG approached their browser theme as a true extension of the activity on their site and were rewarded with 30% of their visitors downloading and using it on a monthly basis. That’s 30% of its visitors who are getting reached with Sohmer’s Library recommendations (commerce opportunity for LFG); visitors who are seeing the latest news about the comic as it happens (invitations back to the site); and fans enjoying an ongoing touch point between them and the LFG experience.

Due to the tight connection between creators and fan base, LFG also created their own graphics for the browser theme. Normally, Brand Thunder manages the process end-to-end for the client. In this case, Brand Thunder provided the LFG artists with the necessary templates and UI guidance, and they returned finished artwork ready to be dropped into the build.

As a custom experience, Brand Thunder works with each brand to determine the right product to meet the needs of their audience and that of their business.

Ontario University Athletics – Integrated sponsorship

Ontario University Athletics connects alumni, students and fans to the 19 colleges and univerities that make up the Ontario University system. They partnered with Brand Thunder to deliver a single browser theme that would meet the needs of all 19 campuses but allow for a single sponsorship.

Fortunately, Brand Thunder’s Boom! technology makes it easy for a user to switch between themes. But it’s not just the theme that changes when a user selects a different one. All content and functionality also changes to meet the needs of the newly specified theme.

The Canadian Dairy Association extended their “Recharge with Milk” campus campaign to the OUA browser theme. It maintained a persistent presence in each of the themes. While the CDA enjoyed consistent messaging across all themes, fans enjoy a unique and individualized experience devoted to the university athletic programs of importance to them.

It’s the perfect fusion of sponsorship and user engagement.

The Washington Capitals – Killer click through to commerce

One of the premier teams in the National Hockey League, the Washington Capitals have a long tradition of engaging their fans whether it’s on the ice or online. As Brand Thunder’s first and longest client, the Capitals have pursued an evolution to their browser theme watching fan use and repurposing existing web content and offers to meet the needs of an audience with a persistent connection to the team.

The most meaningful adjustment that met both the desires of the fans and the revenue objects of the team was to introduce two different commerce buttons within the browser theme. The original Get Gear button consistently performed at the 10%+ click through rate for all clicks from the browser back to the Caps site. Introducing a second button for Tickets more than doubled the clicks back to purchase from the team. Fan clicks from the browser theme back to the Caps site average 29% to commerce destinations.

The Caps also introduced a multimedia sidebar leveraging video footage and photos making it easier for the fans to get the inside view of their favorite hockey team. It’s this commitment and balance of value-added experience with revenue generating opportunities that allow the team and fans have their individual needs met.