18.04.08
David
Dusted and the credit crunch
It is pretty hard to ignore the rising panic amongst banks, consumers and Gordon Brown as Britain’s economy (allegedly) plummets uncontrollably into decline. Recently it has been difficult to pick up a paper without every headline describing sub-prime markets, falling house prices and rocketing interest rates so you’d be forgiven for thinking now would be about the worst time to re-launch a financial services web site. Or would it?
We have been busy of late doing just that for two new clients: Citywire and Cobalt and never before has the Dusted office been so interested in the FTSE, ISAs and the Bank of England Base Rate!
Citywire is an independent financial publishing and data group, 25% owned by Reuters and winner of the 2005, 2006 and 2007 IMA Team Award for Excellence in Investment Writing. It provides a unique combination of journalistic experience, regulated financial advice and proprietary data and late last year, the decision was made to completely overhaul their web site, creating four new channels aimed at very specific audiences:
- Financial advisors
- Consumers
- Professional investors
- European fund selectors
Working with the in-house developers at Citywire, Dusted created a radical new design for each of these channels, ensuring a far stronger design allowed for the presentation of editorial and advertising content in equal measure. If you want to keep a track of your shares portfolio or discover how Brown plans to fix the mortgage crisis, this is the site for you.
Speaking of mortgages, Cobalt is one of the UK’s leading independent mortgage brokers, arranging over £1.5 billion of lending annually and winner of the 2007 and 2008 Mortgage Strategy Best London Broker. Partner, Andrew ‘Monty’ Montlake is regarded as an industry expert appearing regularly on television and in the national press and recently awarded Mortgage Strategy Mortgage Personality of the Year thanks in part to his daily blog – a no holds barred look at the property market.
The new web site clearly presents each division of the company (Group, Capital, Commercial and Private Finance) and is driven by a full Content Management System (CMS) empowering Cobalt with the editorial control they need to ensure their site is bang up to date.
Whether you’re a struggling first-time buyer or an experienced international fund manager, this is probably about the best time to see Citywire and Cobalt re-launch their web sites.
20.06.08
Richard Cook
Dusted worked with us to develop the novel concept of different views of the same site depending on what sort of user was accessing it. The team came up with some great creative ideas which were then developed in a series of collaborative meetings. During these meetings and after, we found Dusted to be both responsive and helpful whilst at the same time managing to stay true to the design idea. The end result is a fantastic, clean series of sites that have received a universally positive response from our users. There was a real sense of ownership from David and Darren with them staying involved from start to finish rather than delegating execution after the initial meeting. I would thoroughly recommend the Dusted team and would have no hesitation in using them again in the future!
17.07.08
jay
Inevitably there will be companies going to the wall as the economy slows down. Streamlining, publicising and promoting through the web and any other medium is a way to stay ahead of the game. The Credit Crunch will prove to be a ’survival of the fittest’ exercise for many competitive sectors.