Phéromone to advise UdeM on its institutional Web strategy

Montreal, October 19, 2011 – The Université de Montréal (UdeM) will be revising its Web strategy with the help of Phéromone.

The university is gearing up for a thorough review of its institutional Web strategy and the use of its portal to better meet student needs and expectations. The university has decided to conduct a strategic review to better define the objectives for each type of client and the strategy for reaching these goals.

“We chose the Phéromone team for its rigorous methodology and approach that focuses on the experience of different users, not just on the Web but also on social networks, phones and tablets,” explains Martine Lafleur, Director of the Université de Montréal’s Centre d’expertise Web and head of the project, which will involve close collaboration with the university’s Communications and Public Relations Office.
Students, professors and researchers are among the most demanding users on the Web. The Internet strategy will try to identify which interaction spaces the university should include in its Web ecosystem so that it can create a dialogue with these different clients, and ensure these spaces evolve over time as needs change.

“The Université de Montréal is one of those innovative organizations that understand that the Internet is now a key component in any business strategy,” said Philippe Le Roux, President of Phéromone. “We’re proud to have been chosen to assist them in defining their vision, objectives and measuring points of their future success on the Web and on social networks.”

Phéromone is a marketing agency firmly entrenched in the new conversational and participatory paradigm that is changing society. It helps businesses redefine their business models and refine their marketing strategies around consumer interactions. Founded 15 years ago, Pheromone is now one of the ten leading advertising agencies in Quebec. Over the years, the agency has racked up countless successes for its clients. It has also attracted over 50 experts whose passion, diversity and work experience provide a unique strength to the team.

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Source: Pheromone, the interaction agency
Information: François de Margerie – francois@pheromone.ca – 514-599-5712 x 326

Pheromone launches a mobile application for cultural industries and their sponsors!

Montreal, April 14, 2011 – With the support of the Canada Media Fund, Pheromone has developed a mobile application generator that allows users to socialize with friends around cultural events. This innovative product offers producers of festivals, cultural events and TV shows a mobile application that increases their engagement with their audience, offers them a great deal of visibility on social networks and is an additional source of revenue.

Sports channel RDS has premiered this technology with today’s launch of Cardio Fan, the first application created with the Pheromone generator. Cardio Fan allows Montreal Canadiens fans to share playoff game fever with Facebook friends and benefit from GM’s sponsorship as it promotes the latest edition of the Cruze via this innovative medium.

Producers can licence similar applications from Pheromone customized for their context and their needs. “These applications allow them to inexpensively generate buzz around a one-time event or series, delivering viral promotion on social networks and offering sponsors a showcase that is second to none,” Philippe Le Roux, president of Pheromone, said.

Pheromone developed the mobile application generator from its innovative multiplatform development technology that resulted from three years of R&D related to the smartphone and tablet market. Each of its applications is available in versions optimized for iPhones, BlackBerrys, Android phones, iPads 1 and 2 as well as Android tablets.

Pheromone
Founded 16 years ago, the agency has broadened its recognized expertise in interactivity to include brand strategy and creation. Using a marketing model based on consumer interactions rather than traditional modes of communication, Pheromone (pheromone.ca) has become one of the ten leading advertising/marketing agencies in Quebec.Its many clients include: Via Rail Canada, Sympatico, RDS, Club Med, Tourisme Québec, ARTV, UQAM and Loto-Québec.

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For more information:

Linda Lévesque
Communications, Pheromone
Tel.: 514 393-3178 / 1 877 393-3178 ; mobile : 514 242-8909
llevesque@lcom.qc.ca

The Molière on Twitter campaign wins a grand prize in San Francisco

Montreal, March 31, 2011 – After a major invitation to tender, Pheromone has won the mandate to advise and support Loto-Québec’s digital communication services team in user experience, e-marketing, Flash and web programming, content management, ergonomics and user testing. This is a high-stakes mandate, particularly since this department manages close to 20 websites in addition to a variety of digital communication projects, such as newsletters, digital displays and e-learning.

“We are proud to be selected by Loto-Québec,” Philippe Le Roux, the agency’s president, said. “This model of supporting the web team that we have been using with a number of customers, including RDS and Tourisme Québec, allows organizations to take advantage of our wide-ranging expertise, while increasing their production capacity.”

The mandate
The user experience on Loto-Québec’s websites is central to the mandate. The experts at Pheromone will perform ergonomics tests and support the Loto-Québec team with web and Flash design to make sure that visitors have the best experience possible. Pheromone’s design methodology involves the entire user experience―visual, ergonomic and functional―and is based on measurable results, tests and analyses.

To win this mandate, Pheromone relied on its many solid references to demonstrate its skills, in particular its current user-centred design mandate for the Sympatico homepage, its artistic usage data visualization project for Bixi (www.bixart.ca) and the powerful Flash interface that it designed for the Pixman Nomadic Media mobile advertising network for the international Join the Wave campaign based on the popular response to the election of President Barack Obama.

To provide Loto-Québec a sense of how it designs its ergonomic tests, which, for Pheromone are an integral part of the creation process, the agency referred to test sessions that led to the creation of ARTV – Le fil (www.lefil.ca). All of these examples show that Pheromone has a highly skilled, creative team focused on the user and results.

Pheromone
Founded 16 years ago, the agency has broadened its recognized expertise in interactivity to include brand strategy and creation. Using a marketing model based on consumer interactions rather than traditional modes of communication, Pheromone (pheromone.ca) has become one of the ten leading advertising/marketing agencies in Quebec.

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For more information:

Linda Lévesque
Communications, Pheromone
Tel.: 514 393-3178 / 1 877 393-3178 ; mobile : 514 242-8909
llevesque@lcom.qc.ca

The Molière on Twitter campaign wins a grand prize in San Francisco

Montreal, November 18, 2010 – Phéromone, a Canadian interaction agency, won a sought-after Bees Award in the category Best Use of Micro-Blogging Platform, for its campaign Molière on Twitter. The international prize was awarded in San Francisco at an event that gathered web 2.0 leaders from around the world.

When Molière seduces on Twitter
Molière wrote in one of his works: L’allégresse du coeur s’augmente à la répandre : The heart’s joy spreads far and wide. This idea drove the success of the marketing operation created by Phéromone to promote a major new production of the 17th-century French classic Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, which was presented by Le Théâtre du Nouveau Monde (TNM), in Montreal in December 2009. In order to attract a new and younger audience, Phéromone brought three of the characters to life on Twitter. Over a one-month period, the Monsieur and Madame Jourdain, together with Monsieur Jourdain’s would-be mistress Dorimène, used individual Twitter accounts to interact in Old French verse. Staying in character, in the spirit of Molière’s wicked sense of humour, they commented on current events.

Convincing results
More than 600,000 people, equal to one third of the population of Montreal, were exposed to this campaign. As a result, the theatre handily beat it’s sales and im ages objectives. Our greatest challenge was to attract attention to a great theatre classic for an audience that is always on the lookout for new things. So we decided to take advantage of the conversational strength of social networks to demonstrate that Molière was relevant to contemporary society, pointed out André Bélanger, Vice-President, Strategy and Consulting at Phéromone.

A success recognized worldwide
Both the success of the campaign and its innovative character won over the jury of the Bees Awards, an international competition that rewards the best uses of marketing in social media. The 19 jury members, from 13 countries, had to decide between several hundred campaigns submitted by agencies and leading brands from 20 countries on five continents.

This campaign, which can be seen at www.pheromone.ca/moliere, had already been recognized by the Quebec advertising industry, which recently awarded Phéromone a Prix Media in the category Interactive Approach on a single Media.

Phéromone, The Interactions Agency
Thanks to its marketing model centred on the interactions of consumers rather than on institutional communication, Pheromone (pheromone.ca) has become one of the ten leading advertising agencies in Quebec. Its clients are local and international brands in different fields, notably tourism and media.

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For more information:

Linda Lévesque
Communications, Pheromone
Tel.: 514 393-3178 / 1 877 393-3178 ; mobile : 514 242-8909
llevesque@lcom.qc.ca

More than 20,000 travel agents use clubmedagents.ca: North American support platform for marketing Club Med products is a big hit!

Montreal, February 1, 2011 – Pheromone and Club Med have created a space that offers an incredible B2B environment for travel agents in the United States and Canada. In addition to providing access to all of Club Med’s information products in an easy-to-use, functional and efficient environment, clubmedagents.ca offers a wide variety of highly useful tools for travel agents who want to offer their customers the best service possible.

“In 6 months, more than 20,000 North American travel agents registered for clubmedagents.ca,” says Jean Kerboul, Club Med’s director of Internet sales and marketing for North America. “The platform is currently used every day by more than 500 travel professionals.  The numbers confirm how appropriate the new web strategy developed by the agency Pheromone and Club Med North America is.”

On the heels of the success of the new customer relations management system that Pheromone put in place last year for Club Med North America, which made it possible to increase web-generated sales by 40%, this second phase involved strengthening direct relations between Club Med and North American travel agents. With clubmedagents.ca, a website especially for them, travel agents have access to tools that make the reservation process easier, distance training modules, a library of digital information that can be printed on demand, and, most importantly, new promotions before anyone! Agents can also personalize email promotion tools for customers and order brochures in paper and digital versions or in their iPad application. 

“It’s highly motivating working for a marketing team that knows that relationships are at least as important as communication and that understands the potential of the Internet for interactions,” says Philippe Le Roux, president of the marketing agency Pheromone. “They have one of the strongest brands in tourism, and Club Med’s leadership shares our obsession with measurable results that are central to an Internet marketing strategy.”

Club Med is constantly reinventing the alchemy of happiness. Today, that happiness is synonymous with enjoying elegance and luxury together. For more information visit www.clubmed.com

Through a marketing model based on consumer interactions rather than on traditional methods of communication, Pheromone (pheromone.ca) has become one of the ten most important advertising and marketing agencies in Quebec. Its customers are local and international brands in a variety of sectors, in particular tourism and media.

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For more information:

Linda Lévesque
Communications, Pheromone
Tel.: 514 393-3178 / 1 877 393-3178 ; mobile : 514 242-8909
llevesque@lcom.qc.ca

The Clarendon as interpreted by Phéromone :
double the reservations!

Montreal, August 31, 2010 – The Hotel Clarendon has seen a significant increase in its online reservations since the launch of its new website and new brand platform developed by Phéromone. “Just two and a half months after its launch, our new site already generates two times the reservations of last year, also doubling our revenues for the same period,” says Sophie Brisson, Vice-President, Sales and Marketing for Groupe Dufour, owner of the establishment.

The Phéromone agency developed the new brand platform for the hotel: “The worst kept secret in Old Québec, since 1870.” This platform reinforces more than a century of the Clarendon’s popularity and reputation. On the new site, this is conveyed by a refined design that is independent of that of other Groupe Dufour sites. The intimate, narrative writing style, which gives the impression of being personally guided by the concierge in the discovery of the Clarendon’s history and secrets, features the many personalities past and present who have resided at the hotel.

“We are very satisfied with the results we have had for the Clarendon, for they once again confirm the effectiveness of our marketing approach, which is centred on the interactions consumers have with the brand and the conversations they have about it, rather than the traditional unidirectional communication,” states Philippe Le Roux, President of Phéromone.

The The Hotel Clarendon is a property of Groupe Dufour whose tradition of hospitality continues to grow over the years. Groupe Dufour operates four hotel establishments and three boats for cruises and tours.

Phéromone is a marketing agency anchored in the new conversational and participative paradigm that is transforming society. It contributes decisively to the redefinition of business and organisation models, refining their marketing strategies in terms of consumers and their interactions. With a wealth of experience already earned in its 15 years, Phéromone today is one of the ten most important Quebec advertising agencies. Over the years, the agency has earned a great many successes for its clients. It has also attracted and brought together 72 experts whose passion, maturity and professional experience make for an exceptionally strong team.

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Information :

Linda Lévesque
Communications, Phéromone
Tel. : 514 393-3178 / 1 877 393-3178 ; cell: 514 242-8909
llevesque@lcom.qc.ca

Club Med: a 40% increase in web-generated sales

MONTREAL, February 17, 2010 — In the past year, Club Med North America (Canada, United States) has seen its web-generated sales jump by 40%. Plus its “click to book” ratio (the proportion of Internet users who buy a trip after having clicked on a link in an email) is 2.5 times higher than it used to be.

Behind this performance is Pheromone, which has been guiding Club Med in optimizing its relationship marketing for the past year. The agency’s implementation of a new customer relationship management system for Club Med North America’s contacts and prospects allows one of the largest brands in global tourism to communicate more effectively with its consumers and travel agents across the continent.

“Pheromone’s advice and guidance has allowed us to make the communication cycle with our customers more reliable,” says Jean Kerboul, director of Internet sales and marketing, North America, Club Med. “Strengthening our relationships with customers has already generated impressive sales results.”

Based on this success, Pheromone is currently building a platform that will reinforce the connections between Club Med and travel agents. This platform will be equipped with distance learning modules, new communication tools and more to support communication targeted to the market (United States, Canada).

The agency obtained the Club Med account for North America (Canada, United States) in the fall of 2008 in partnership with Winn Marketing.

“Our business relationship with Club Med reinforces our positioning in the tourism sector and expands our expertise in North America,” says Philippe Le Roux, president of Pheromone. “It also illustrates the importance of optimizing relationships between a brand, its players and its customers on the Internet.”

Club Med is constantly reinventing the alchemy of happiness. Today, that happiness is synonymous with enjoying elegance and luxury together. For more information visit : www.clubmed.com

Pheromone is an agency that helps organizations redefine their business model and marketing strategy around consumers and their interactions. Since it was founded in 1994, it has seen success after success for its customers (VIA Rail, RDS, ARTV, SÉPAQ, and others) and has put together a team of 60 experts whose passion is rivalled only by their professional maturity and experience. Website : www.pheromone.ca

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Information ::

Linda Lévesque
Communications, Phéromone
Tél : 514 393-3178 / 1 877 393-3178 ; cellulaire : 514 242-8909
llevesque@lcom.qc.ca

Smartphones: Blackberry and iPhone dominate
the Quebec market

Quebec market is essentially concentrated on three technology platforms: recent Blackberry models from RIM that support 3G, with 39% of the market, Apple’s iPhone, with 35% of the market, and smartphones based on the Google’s Android system, with 26%. The study shows that the owners of these smartphones use them overwhelmingly to access the web (69%) and for social networking (53%).

Over 11% of Quebeckers already have a smartphone, less than two years since the launch of the first iPhone in Canada. This rapid adoption is prompting more and more companies to invest to reach consumers in these new mobile interactive spaces. “Companies that are developing applications exclusively for the iPhone are reaching only 35% of their target market; the Blackberry and the Google Android represent the other 65%,” Philippe Le Roux, president of Pheromone, said. “We think it’s important to have an objective vision of the market to support our customers’ strategic decisions, which is why we commissioned the study.

Pheromone had market research firm MBA Recherche ask questions from March 23 to 25 as part of an OmniMax poll conducted with 1000 Quebec Internet users twice a month. Their answers showed the current place smartphones occupy as well as the behaviour of their owners.

The study revealed that 4.3% of respondents have Blackberry 3G phones, 4% have iPhones and 2.9% have 3G phones with the Android operating system. When asked about their use of these devices, slightly more than two thirds of respondents revealed that they use them to access the web. Of the smartphone owners interviewed, 53% use them for social networking applications such as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. More than half of them (58%) do so daily.

“Quebeckers have adopted smartphones even faster than they adopted the Internet, which took a number of years before exceeding the 10% penetration mark,” Philippe Le Roux said. “Smartphones with GPS functionality that enable geopositioning are becoming a powerful marketing tool for brands to reach consumers anywhere, at any time, including when they are shopping.”

Pheromone (pheromone.ca/en) is a Montreal-based agency that helps organizations redefine their business models and marketing strategies around consumers’ interactions. For the past 15 years, it has been amassing successes for its national and international clients and has a team of 70 experts whose passion and innovation are equalled by their professional maturity and experience.

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Information ::

Linda Lévesque
Communications, Phéromone
Tél : 514 393-3178 / 1 877 393-3178 ; cellulaire : 514 242-8909
llevesque@lcom.qc.ca

David Rollert joins Pheromone

Montreal, March 4, 2010 – With nearly 30 years of experience in managing creative and design teams in New York and Boston, David Rollert has joined Pheromone, the interactions agency as its vice president of interactive design. He will be heading up the agency’s key interactive sector that includes teams involved in concept development, design, creation, user experience, prototyping and user research.
Since the 1980s, David has lent his talent for building and managing design, creation and innovation teams to a number of major American companies such as Time Warner (then Time Inc.), Citibank, AT&T, Ziff Davis and Fidelity Management. He also spent many years in agencies, in particular at Digitas, where he managed the creative group and worked on American Express, Delta, Fedex, General Motors and Victoria’s Secret accounts.
“I love the creative energy in Montreal, and the vision of Pheromone’s leaders really resonated with me,” David Rollert says. “An agency that puts interactions at the core of its mission and that has built such a talented team has definite appeal. My mission has always been to create services with a user experience that exceeds expectations, and that’s one of the keys of Pheromone’s mission.”
“David Rollert’s joining Pheromone is an opportunity for us to move one step further in redefining the model of the marketing agency 2.0,” Philippe le Roux, president of Pheromone, says.
Pheromone is a Montreal-based agency that helps organizations redefine their business models and marketing strategies around consumers and their interactions. Since its foundation in 1994, it has amassed successes for its national and international customers and has attracted a team of 60 experts whose passion is surpassed only by their professional maturity and experience.

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Information:
Linda Lévesque
Communications, Pheromone
Tel.: 514 393-3178/1 877 393-3178; cell: 514 242-8909
llevesque@lcom.qc.ca

Two internationally renowned web experts

Montreal, October 22, 2009 – Karl Dubost and Olivier Théreaux, who spent a number of years working together in Japan for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), recently joined the web team at Pheromone (formerly VDL2). They will reinforce the web technology and culture expertise of the agency, which is already recognized as a Quebec leader in the field.
“I want to show that respecting web standards and its technological foundations is not a limitation, but rather reinforces the marketing efficacy, user experience and human dimension of the interactive space,” says Karl Dubost, who has taken on the management of Pheromone’s development team.
Olivier Théreaux is in charge of the agency’s product architecture. “Pheromone and I share a desire to create a more intelligent, collaborative and relevant web,” he says.
“The arrival of Karl and Olivier, whose talent is recognized throughout the international web community, confirms the aptness of Pheromone defining new marketing and agency models, just when the traditional model is being questioned every day,” says Yves Lapierre, vice president of finance and human resources. “They will also contribute to the new positioning of Pheromone, which no longer recognizes frontiers between interactive platforms or geographical frontiers.”
The W3C, where Karl and Olivier worked for almost ten years, was founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, to supervise the development of norms and standards that ensure the compatibility of web technologies and usages.
Karl Dubost got involved in the web’s evolution in 1991, in the university context and in private enterprise. In 2000, he was recruited in France by the W3C as a conformance manager to organize quality assurance activities from start to finish: he put in place a validation process for web standards, with a lateral view of all technologies. In 2005, he joined the W3C’s Japanese team at Keio University. He then became an evangelist for W3C standards, publishing articles and documents, blogging for the organization, participating in conferences, conducting training, etc. He was a bridge between moderating discussions internally and managing conversations in the web ecosystem. In 2007, he took part in implementing a working group that defined the HTML5 standard, a group made up of over 400 players in the industry worldwide.
Olivier Théreaux, an engineer who graduated from the École Centrale Paris, joined the W3C in Japan in 2000. He quickly became a member of the quality assurance department. From 2004 to 2009, he was in charge of the W3C’s validation tools. Developed in open source, these services are used every day by millions of developers and designers.
In 2004, Olivier Théreaux founded the international network Art Beat in Japan, and its multilingual web sites today offer a primary source of information on the art and design scene from Tokyo to New York.