The Original Web Design Firm: Organic.com

06:55 | Michael Johnson | Jan 26th, 2007 7:18pm |

Fourteen years ago, in the early days of the Internet, it may have been hard to imagine shopping for a car, ordering food, or making other important consumer decisions all online. Organic saw an opportunity, though, and that’s when it began to work with some forward-thinking companies that saw the Internet as a powerful marketing tool. Amanda Van Nuys is executive director of corporate marketing and alliances at Organic.com. She discusses where the company is today, and how they’ve managed to stay competitive in web marketing for so long.

Transcript:
Host: Michael Johnson - PodTech
Guest: Amanda Van Nuys – Organic.com

Michael Johnson - PodTech
This is Michael Johnson and with me today is Amanda Van Nuys, the Executive Director of Consumer Marketing for Organic. Welcome to the Podcast.

Amanda Van Nuys – Organic.com
Thank you very much, delighted to be here.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
Now, for those that aren’t familiar with Organic, as I remember, it was one of the first Web design sites, period is that correct?

Amanda Van Nuys – Organic.com
Wonderful memory. Actually we’re, we’re digital communications agency and we were the first digital communications agency founded in 1993. In fact, Organic.com is one of the first 50 registered URLs on the commercial Internet. So, we are very proud to be a one of the original pioneers.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
So what is that mean to come with that much history, it’s practically millennial as far as the Web age goes? What did Organics start out to be and what is it now?

Amanda Van Nuys – Organic.com
You know it’s interesting. The initial vision for Organic is still intact today. We’re interested in building, consumer experiences online that are engaging and delightful and we think very holistically about the Internet and did from the very beginning. We think about Websites, we think about online marketing campaigns, we think about all digital touch points from mobile to digital kiosk to basically anything that blinks. We had from the start even early on we were the inventors of the banner ad, a little bit of a dubious distinction, but we continue to evolve in the Web 2.0 universe. We love social networking and we love viral campaigns, and we love all of the new emerging technologies and innovations that are really making our space very exciting.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
How big is the company?

Amanda Van Nuys – Organic.com
You know, we are about 300 people that’s what most of the publications that estimate our size, put us that although Omnicom does prevent us from saying the exact number, so about 300 is the right.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
So what kind of things is Organic doing these days and now that it’s — my thought of from when I reviewed the Founder Jonathan Nelson 13-14 years ago that you were designing things then for your first client I think was Volvo, way back when and it was seem to incredulous than of that somebody would actually go online and shop for a car, but now obviously that’s different. What is organic doing these days that really is — something different what is — because there is a lot of companies out there now, it’s nice to be one of the first, but it takes something to stay in the business this long. 13 years like a say the age of the Web is millennium, so what is Organic up to now?

Amanda Van Nuys – Organic.com
Organic is interactive agency of record for a lot of different companies across many verticals, including Automotive DaimlerChrysler, Bank of American and Sprint, but since you mentioned automotive, it is interesting because we did build the first automotive Website that was on the Internet and it was Volvo, you have a great memory. Today, we’ll continue to work with DaimlerChrysler for Mitsubishi. It’s interesting because now you can look at up on any Forester Report about 80% of car buyers do a tremendous amount of research online.

So, marketers today understand that the Internet is an incredible important medium for consumers to make decisions. For example, for DaimlerChrysler today we continue to pioneer some interesting firsts. We’ve one of the first MySpace Campaigns that put the MySpace in the middle of the campaign and it was for Jeep Compass called Jeep Uncharted where we promoted 300 free concerts straight out of a Jeep Compass, which was the vehicle that we were promoting and the consumers would only be able to find out about that tour through MySpace.

So, it’s very exciting. We continue to do other firsts, such as, we placed the first sponsored channel on YouTube and it was for the first entertainment branded channel, the Paris Hilton Channel and it was for Fox Prison Break, so we continue to presage.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
So, what about the cross over, now some people are and it is kind of inevitable this merge with between social media and corporate media if you will. How do you sort of define that balance and make that user experience something that people feel, I guess the idea is to make the people feel good about whatever their user experiences on the Web. So, how does Organic sort of — what’s the philosophy there about making that an easier process?

Amanda Van Nuys – Organic.com
It’s interesting. We very much believe that if you create wonderful experiences that are worthy and delightful of consumer to talk about that they will talk about it and pass that word of mouth along. So, we very much believe in creating emotionally compelling and very usable experiences that people talk about. In a social media in particular, you need to give something to get something, so we very much always look at what value are we giving to consumer and what can we give them to creat that word of mouth and that buzz.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
Any one that you can think of that might be examples of what people could take a look at to see Organic’s work?

Amanda Van Nuys – Organic.com
I would actually recommend taking a look at the Jeep Uncharted Campaign; it’s a myspace.com/jeep. You can take a look at the concerts and take a look at the videos of the concerts, take a look at the eight emerging artists that toured the country, as well as get some free downloads and screensavers, and all that good stuff.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
You got, I imagine pointing the other clients from original Website as well?

Amanda Van Nuys – Organic.com
Of course, we’re at organic.com, a terrific URL and I would actually also recommend taking a look at our blog called Three Minds, it’s at threeminds/organic.com or you can get to it from our main home page and it’s a really great resource. We internally 400 people, 300 people talk everyday about interesting experiences that we see online. And we take the best of that discussion and put it on public facing sites. So, you can sort of take a peek into what we were thinking today.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
Three Minds isn’t like out of your mind.

Amanda Van Nuys – Organic.com
Three Minds is — well we’re a little bit out of our minds, but that’s a good thing. No, we really believe that the best ideas come from putting many heads together and getting different perspectives. So that sort the inspiration behind Three Minds.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
Alright Amanda Van Nuys, is the Executive Director for Corporate Marketing with Organic. I can say the one of the very first, actually the very first Web design company ever and check them out at organic.com and thanks for being with us on the Podcast today.

Amanda Van Nuys – Organic.com
Thank you, it’s a pleasure.

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Tags: Amanda Van Nuys, Organic.com, web marketing

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