There are countless travel booking sites out there… Wouldn’t it be great for federal travelers to have access to compliant rates at or below per diem PLUS guaranteed amenities? Federal employees have exactly that, thanks to the official U.S. government-wide, government sponsored hotel program called FedRooms. FedRooms is managed by the General Services Administration (GSA) and administered by the military and government branch of the global corporate travel leader and longtime Spyglass client Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT).

Spyglass was hired by the CWT FedRooms team to redesign the FedRooms website to make it more user and mobile-friendly—and the result was a winner. Literally! The redesigned site recently received a prestigious Gold Award in the “Government Website” division of the dotCOMM Awards, an international competition honoring excellence in web creativity and digital communication. The competition spotlights the role of creatives in the dynamic, constantly evolving web.

We’re proud of the new site, and invite you to check it out if you are a federal traveler on official business. Not a federal traveler? Spyglass can certainly bring the award-winning features and functionality of a crowd-pleasing site like this to you.

When a company specializes in fecal transplants, it pays to have a sense of humor. Spyglass developed the “We’re #2” rally cry for the internal launch of the new brand.

Congrats to Lee Jones, Spyglass client and founder of a pioneering biotech startup that was recently acquired by a Swiss pharmaceuticals company. Lee came to us in 2012 with a company called MikrobEX and a vision of using microbes extracted from human stool to treat serious infections. We helped her define a new category called “Rebiotics,” renamed the company Rebiotix and positioned the company as the market leader in this emergent space.

“Spyglass gave us an aspirational vision and told us that the brand needed to stand for something,” explained Lee. “That was really important and the investment we made in brand positioning more than paid off.” We’ll share more about this exciting story in the next SpyTimes edition, but in the meantime we send our best wishes and congratulations to this inspiring woman and the Rebiotix team.

Booking travel for work can be a bear … or a breeze. For federal employees, the experience just got a whole lot better. FedRooms is the official U.S. government hotel program, administered by global corporate travel leader and longtime Spyglass client Carlson Wagonlit Travel.

The FedRooms program is a winner, giving government travelers more choice, better value and guaranteed amenities, AND it saved federal agencies (and taxpayers!) nearly $21.8 million in 2017 alone. But the online experience didn’t live up to the program’s promise. The website wasn’t mobile friendly or ADA compliant, and it hadn’t been updated in 6 years — an eon in technology time.

Enter Spyglass.

We updated the logo, developed a new messaging hierarchy and website structure, and brought a whole new FedRooms look/tone/feel to life on the new site. Now, travelers have simple, intuitive access to the planning and booking tools they need, and “employee-grade” perks and benefits that we civilians can’t get.

See the new site

Before we leap ahead to 2018, we’d like to take a moment to acknowledge our clients and the great work we had the pleasure of doing over the past year. These collaborations resulted in five top honors in a variety of marketing, communication and digital categories, including two Platinum and three Gold.

Here are a few highlights:

Carlson Wagonlit Travel
Internal Magazine: CWT Insider

Capella Education Company
InsightPath Company Overview Video

Edina Education Fund
Socktoberfest Identity

The MarCom Awards recognize outstanding achievements in marketing and communication, and is one of the oldest, largest, and most prestigious creative competitions in the world. MarCom is sponsored and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP), a 22-year-old international organization consisting of several thousand creative professionals. In 2017, the awards received more than 6,000 international entries.

Spyglass is proud to announce we are now working with Minnetronix – one of the nation’s pioneering med tech companies – on their brand positioning and go-to-market story.  Minnetronix is on a mission to solve challenging problems for the benefit of patients and humanity. It’s aspirational – and, more importantly, given their track record as a valued design and manufacturing partner with OEMs and their own proprietary technologies and treatments – it’s doable!

Thank you to Carolyn Baldus, Sr. Communications Manager, for sending us this note last week —

“The work you presented was spot on and we were all truly impressed. You get us. You captured our passion, our intention and our why. Thank you all for your work and your guidance.”

Spyglass brings home gold for Capella Learning Solution’s InsightPath video

Have you ever tried to condense your company’s story into 90 seconds, in a way that creates clarity and drives demand? The Spyglass Team did exactly that for InsightPath—a program designed to help companies convert their analytics into action.

InsightPath was developed by Capella Learning Solutions in collaboration with the International Institute for Analytics to teach business teams how to think strategically and tactically to make data-driven decisions. CLS and Spyglass worked together to develop a name, identity, website, sales presentation and then a video that could communicate InsightPath’s message succinctly.

Last week, the video was recognized when dotCOMM Awards announced Spyglass as a Gold Winner for the 2017 International Award Competition in the category of Company Overview Video. dotCOMM Awards is an international competition honoring excellence in web creativity and digital communication.

Chris Giacomazzo, Sr Business Director at Capella Learning Solutions said, “Getting to the heart of what we do quickly, while still showing the entire InsightPath process was not easy. Spyglass helped us bring the InsightPath brand and key messages to life in a way that made the InsightPath process approachable and easy to understand. We couldn’t be happier with the end product.”

See for yourself! Watch the video here

Summer may still be in full force, but fall is just around the corner – and with the change of season comes the crisp air, pumpkin spiced treats, leaves changing colors and most importantly, the first annual Socktoberfest!

This October, join Edina Education Fund for their inaugural event and a night of great food, fun games and the chance to be a part of history as they attempt to break the world record for the most people in one space wearing matching socks – all while raising funds to support the educational needs and opportunities for Edina Public School students.

As a long time sponsor of the Edina Ed Fund, Spyglass had the opportunity to create the logo for the event. All of us here are excited to break out our new socks in a few months! It is sure to be a fun filled event that will get you into the fall spirit. Buy your tickets and socks here.

Congratulations to our client Cretex Companies on their recent acquisition of Quality Tech Services (QTS), a supplier of outsourced packaging services to the medical device industry.  This addition to the Cretex family of businesses gives their medical division another secret weapon in providing end-to-end medical manufacturing solutions for their medical device customers.

As with any acquisition, the timing of the announcement and preparing for launch was critical.  Spyglass helped ensure QTS was ready to look like part of the Cretex family from day one, and also spread the word near and far in the press and across the industry.
Read more in Medical Design & Outsourcing

Spyglass’s own Sara Martin and Paige DeRoma are key AMA members and have helped create yet another winning event focused on brand strategy. If you are in the Twin Cities, come on over and learn how healthcare brands are discovering clear ROI by weaving B2C marketing ideas into their B2B communications. Speaker Andy Jacobson, Director of Strategic Communications at HealthFitness will reveal how his company has done just that by adopting a “consumer is king” mindset to develop their B2B content sharing strategy.

Event Details
Tuesday, Jun 27, 2017, 5:30PM – 7:30PM,
Rojo Mexican Grill Register today
More information

Spyglass’s very own Sara Martin, Account Executive Extraordinaire, has been recognized for her outstanding volunteer work by the Minnesota Women in Marketing & Communication (MWMC). Each year the MWMC honors a board member with the Volunteer of the Year Award. According to MWMC President, Jill Pettit, “This year, the award goes to a person who has shown persistence and is the voice of MWMC on the end of the phone or email welcoming each new member. She’s got down and dirty in our database and came out the other side shiny and refreshed. She has a constant smile, a great spirit, and unending dedication.” Congratulations Miss Sara Martin, this year’s MWMC Volunteer of the Year!

Way to go, Sara!