50th tenant takes The Sharp Project’s office units occupancy to 75%
The Sharp Project, east Manchester’s digital content production complex, has reached an important milestone following the signing of nine new tenants taking the total number to 50.
With the tally of tenants reaching 50, over 75 per cent of the office units are now let. In total, the building accommodates 66 work spaces including 26 converted shipping containers in the Red Street space, and 40 office units across Blue and Gold areas.
New occupiers include The Zood, Made in Manchester, Digital Cools, Social Surf Online, Will Yapp, ELP (Elstree Light and Power), Dig Marketing, Paramount Media and Vibe Republic.
One of the companies that has just moved in, content marketing specialists Dig Marketing, chose The Sharp Project because of their ability to tap into the wealth of talent based there.
Tim Bilsborough, formed the company three months ago with business partner, Gabrielle O’Hare, and between them have 40 years’ experience working in advertising and production at the North West’s leading agencies.
Tim Bilsborough
Tim Bilsborough explained: “Having such a diverse range of digital companies literally outside our door is fantastic and made our decision to move here an easy one. We love the niche entrepreneurial spirit that has been created and want to pull on the resources right here all under this roof and offer our clients a truly unique service. We’re in the business of selling tailored ideas to companies, particularly in the retail sector, and we know we can find people within the building that can make the ideas happen.”
Rose Marley, General Manager of The Sharp Project added: “Reaching this milestone is a great way of rounding off a fantastic year for The Sharp Project. With 50 of the 66 office units now occupied, we are creating a thriving community of digital entrepreneurs. This clearly demonstrates that the digital and creative media sector is flourishing here in the North West despite the current economic downturn. There has never been a more exciting time to work in this field with so many opportunities available to small digital businesses and young start-ups.”
Eddie Smith, chief executive for New East Manchester who oversee the delivery of The Sharp Project on behalf of landlords Manchester City Council said: “We’ve delivered a fantastic environment for young digital start-ups and the amount of interest in our facilities is testament to this. Having reached a 75 per cent occupancy rate on the office units is great news. With The Campus opening next year, 2012 is set to be another exciting year for The Sharp Project.”
Dig Marketing launch at The Sharp Project offering digital catalogue and online video consultancy
- The Dig Team, Tim and Gabrielle
A new company has opened its doors at The Sharp Project in east Manchester, with an offer that helps clients make the most of online video and digital catalogues to help them grow sales through their existing websites.
Incorporating this type of content onto websites is fast becoming a proven way for e-commerce retailers to grow their sales and build strong relationships with their customers, and Dig Marketing are a consultancy business who work closely with their clients to put sound strategies in place, and to get high volume video content produced in the most effective and cost efficient way possible.
Co-founder, Tim Bilsborough explained, ‘The way people are using social media and the growth of tablet ownership, means that retailers need to respond to how customers want information about products and the way they want to shop. And when our clients decide they want to produce new material for their sites to capitalize on this, they often want to do it quickly! We can get projects up and running with very short lead-times, thanks to our experience and the way we’ve set the business up to respond to this type of client need and these deadlines..’
Gabrielle O’Hare, Dig’s co-founder tells how The Sharp Project has been a real attraction for their clients, ‘We have a fantastic set of neighbours, who include SEO and web development companies; TV & Video producers, Motion Capture and IPTV specialists. When our clients come to see us, we can literally take them round the site and knock on their doors for a chat! Clients see for themselves how we can call on this expertise when we need it and experience the genuine entrepreneurial spirit and collaborative attitude amongst us all. Once our clients have seen the set up for themselves, they don’t need any more convincing about the value of this unique community.”
Dig Marketing’s Gabrielle O’Hare, quoted in Augmented Reality’s post:
We HAVE to remember to do Augmented Reality for a reason…
Worth thinking about as a Christmas rush by the BIG brands to cram Augmented Reality into their campaign thinking.
It’s nice as we are getting lots of interest and people wanting quotes.
But the bad thing is the impossible deadlines i.e. in 2 weeks please.
And the lack of clear thinking….So here’s great bit of thinking here about augmented reality from Gabrielle OHare
In the blog about augmented reality (listed here) http://www.digmarketing.co.uk/category/blog/
Gabrielle reports “I’ve seen two particular AR examples this week, which provoke an interesting comparison for how you can get the best effect for your brand.
The first example I saw was for Waitrose. The AR element was integrated as a ‘final surprise’ in their Christmas TV ad. The second was for Starbucks. An AR app which works when you point your phone at your coffee cup.
Putting any creative opinions aside for these two examples, they will succeed or fail based on a single element; how simple and convenient it is for the customer to participate in the AR experience.
Think about the Waitrose execution for a minute, it’s primarily produced as a TV ad, so you need to be sat on your sofa, mobile device in hand, ready to go the second the ad appears on your TV screen – which of course you have no advance warning about. Compare this to the Starbucks app. You’re sat in Starbucks, coffee and phone on the table right in front of you. You point your phone at the cup and have a play with the AR characters that pop up in front of you. Easy and fun.
For augmented reality to work well – and justify the cost, it has to enhance the customer experience (which both examples do), but also seamlessly integrate into normal behaviour and prolong or deepen their exposure to the brand through interaction. My money’s on Starbucks getting the best results.”
We know the boys at Blippar – so we will be quizzing them about the results from this mobile augmented reality application. Whereas the Starbucks campaign with all the other work Starbuck’s has already done in mobile looks and feels like a winner already.
Only time will tell. Cup Magic, this AR campaign, created by Blast Radius, caps off a year of successful mobile implementations by Starbucks. The brand launched a mobile payment app in January that has been used in more than 20 million transactions and a QR code program designed, like Starbucks Cup Magic, to enhance the in-store brand experience. Which is what Augmented Reality Advertising should all be about.
Shame it’s not in the UK yet. However, hurrah for Blippar for their UK first – an AR mentioned above the line campaign – personally I would have done this differently but we can all be very clever in hindsight.