There’s nothing like a recommendation from the businesses that work with us day in day out. So thanks to them.

We’re really excited to announce the arrival of the newest member of the team here at our new office in Westbourne. Our newly appointed Account Exec, Kathryn Tradewell, will soon be a first point of contact for many clients, ensuring that effective communication continues to be delivered as we increase our client portfolio.

Kathryn is a fine art graduate from the Arts University College at Bournemouth, describing herself as a conceptual contemporary artist. She’s a creative thinker and will be instrumental in ensuring that our digital projects continue to be delivered at the high standard our clients have come to expect.

As an independently owned and run company, Base is enjoying healthy growth as demand for our services increase and has recently moved it’s studio to larger premises in Bournemouth.

Update 18/05/10: We’ve moved this opportunity’s closing date to this Friday (21st May 2010) due to a high level of response. Thanks to those who have applied already!

Today sees the BaseIntern programme open with a call for submissions for our Web Developer (Front-end) Internship for the 2010/11 academic year.

The internships at Base are designed to run for approximately 42 weeks and aim to bring out the best in digital undergraduate talent. As part of the company’s strategic growth the new position will provide support to our production team.

Closing date for applicants is 21st May 2010. Short-listed candidates will be required to attend an interview and those that impress will be invited to spend a day with the team for assessment.

We have put together a broad programme for internship that we hope will be of real benefit to those who are accepted.

To apply for the position, please email your CV and a covering letter to intern@basecreativeagency.com

Next month we’ll be launching the BaseIntern programme, designed to nurture digital undergraduate talent. As part of the Base team’s strategic growth the new positions will provide support to our design and production teams.

We have put together a broad programme for internship that we hope will be of real benefit to those who are accepted.

“We’re really looking forward to the whole mentoring process. By launching the programme we hope we can help equip the next generation of designers and developers with the real-world skills that bring digital to life.”

Emma Wyllie, Studio Manager

Every year we receive a number of requests for work placement opportunities and up until now we’ve not had the capacity to accept them. But with the great 7-strong team we’ve built over the last 19 months, we’re in a brilliant position to provide a real agency experience to our interns.
Open for submissions on 4th May 2010

The BaseIntern programme opens for submissions on the 4th May 2010. Details of our first available internship will be on the website then, with more information about how to apply. To pre-register your interest please email intern@basecreativeagency.com

Like many digital agencies, here at Base we’ve been advising our clients to take a multi-pronged approach to their digital marketing strategies for a while now. These strategies are all important 6/12 month plans designed to increase visitor numbers to their websites and engage in their business, products or services once they’ve arrived.

As the price of paid-for click advertising goes up and the bid competition becomes increasingly saturated, more savvy businesses are looking for new ways to drive good quality traffic to their sites and they’re seeking out talented digital people to make sure that impact is achieved at the right price.

As this comment from Will Cooper at New Media Age suggests, search engine optimisation is back on the full time agenda.

“it seems there are more pitches and enquiries about SEO than PPC at the moment as brands look for long-term, rather than short-term, results”
Will Cooper, New Media Age

This echoes our own experiences in the last few months, where we’ve been actively working on longer term SEO plans with clients who are looking to invest for sustained natural search engine growth. And those businesses are already seeing a return on those investments through tracking and analytics.

Understanding that while natural search engine results aren’t explicitly paid for, like pay-per-click adverts, time and financial investment is required to acheive and sustain natural results, particularly in competitive areas.

“One thing that’s interesting out of the conversations with specialists is that among a surprising number of large brands there’s still a perceived notion that SEO is ‘free’.

Far from it. The time and investment needed to run an effective SEO strategy is costly, and although it might not hit the financial peaks that paid search campaigns can reach, it’s certainly not cheap.”
Will Cooper, New Media Age

We’re successfully minimising the ongoing costs to our clients by working hard to get it right from the beginning. We focus on creating a quality user experience, which inherently benefits how a site is perceived by the search engines. Advanced search engine optimisation techniques, including site information architecture, are built into all projects.

It makes good business sense that we put the building blocks in place for every single one of our clients, however small the project. Even when a client tells us that being found in Google isn’t a priority objective, we build in good SEO groundwork – ready for when it is. When it doesn’t cost any more to set it up this way, it makes sense to add the value from day one, helping to reduce the investment costs later.

A few weeks ago Base attended the Media Innovation Awards held down in Bristol to support our nomination in the corporate website category. We knew we’d be in great company down there but we didn’t realise how great until we got there on the night! Once the awards ceremony had got underway we realised that we’d seen several of the winning TV shows on the BBC! And our work was up for an award on the same night – not bad company eh?!

We didn’t come away with the award (Falmouth based Gendall won with their great site visitnewquay.org) but we were really chuffed to make it onto the final shortlist of 3 nominees. Here’s the press release with all the details…

Base Creative Agency Proud to make Media Innovation Awards Shortlist

Bournemouth based digital communications agency, Base Creative Agency, were proud to represent creative digital talent in Dorset at the Media Innovation Awards 2009 in Bristol on 12th March.

Out of a record 143 entries from across the South West, Base was the only Dorset agency to be short-listed for their work with Transdev Yellow Buses on their ecommerce website, bybus.co.uk. Winners across the 16 different media and design categories included ‘Big Cat Live’ produced by BBC Natural History Unit and ‘Britain from Above’, produced by 422 South for Lion Television and BBC1.

Tom Quay, Digital Director at Base, who are situated in the Enterprise Pavilion, said: “It’s amazing to think that our work has been nominated alongside work by such established organisations. The BBC have collected awards tonight and despite not winning our category, it is a testament to the hard work and talent of the team here at Base that our work has been in the running.”

The awards recognised the innovative use of screen-based media and design across the region and were created to reward excellence across a range of disciplines including web design and interactive media.

Base’s work on bybus.co.uk combines a sophisticated new layout and interactive elements which makes the use of the site easier and more enjoyable. Finance Director at Transdev Yellow Buses, Andrew Smith congratulated the team saying that it was a great job done by all involved.

We are really pleased to announce the launch of a site that we hope will bring some much deserved attention to the great folks at the Lantern Community in Ringwood, Dorset.

The Lantern Community provides a home life, fulfilling work, friendship and education for adults with a learning disability.

Simon Figg, responsible for the day to day running of the community and his colleagues Emma Borberley-Bartis and Csaba Dolak found Base through a Google search and after a really positive meeting asked us to take the ambitious project forward. On visiting the Lantern and meeting members of the community we could see the great work they do and were really pleased to be chosen to bring the new site to life.

The community runs an organic shop, selling homemade crafts from the Lantern weavery and pottery, a cafe, bakery, plant nursery, and bookshop on a 15 acre site on the outskirts of Ringwood town.

Base worked closely with the team at Lantern to build a window into the challenging yet rewarding world of living and working amongst adults with special needs. As a community each of the members have a say in it’s day to day running and we worked hard to maintain a high level of involvement with everyone, including a presentation of the completed site before it’s launch.

“The unveiling of the site to the community before we launched was a real highlight. We’d had lots of input from them about what they would like to see in the new site and to show everyone the culmination of all of these things was great fun. I stood in a very excited room full of community members, old and young, really excited at what they were being shown.

The website gives you a taste of what you’ll find when you get there but I wholeheartedly recommend a visit to fully understand what an inspiring place the Lantern is.”

Tom Quay, Digital Director at Base

With a remit to highlight volunteering opportunities and raise awareness of the communities organic and craft enterprises we have delivered a stylish overhaul of the existing website alongside content management and comprehensive training and support. Designed to show what life is like for volunteers and employees, the aim is to increase volunteer numbers from across the globe whilst promoting it locally as a great place to buy fresh bread, organic produce and homemade crafts.

“Thanks for all your work on the website, we all love it”

Emma Borberley-Bartis, The Lantern Shop

With a strong visual focus, including photography from community member Eva Bartussek, the site gives you an idea of the caring and nurturing environment that the Lantern have built, whilst providing a professional edge for those seeking information regarding volunteering and employment. The site also features a forum designed for volunteers and potential members to ask questions and seek further information from existing members.

Behavioural analytics technology firm Predictive Intent launched a new online platform with the help of the Base team at the beginning of 2010. In a very exciting year for targeted advertising company founders Neil Hamilton and Stuart Swift are seeking to capitalise on their knowledge of the sector with a range of innovative products.

“As part of an ongoing digital strategy we’ve worked with start-up Predictive Intent to help them communicate the effectiveness of their behavioural analytics products in what is a growing technology sector this year. Understanding the application of the technology has been key to being able to convey the message successfully and we’re starting to see a very positive uptake of their systems across the range of ecommerce platforms they are developing for.”

Matt Morgan, Digital Projects Manager at Base

With a range of solutions and plugins for both enterprise and open source ecommerce systems Predictive Intent is making the technology simple and cost effective to implement, a winning combination in such a competitive and complex industry.

Base have delivered a professional brand and the tools for engaging with the sector through the implementation of a professional social media platform. Built on the open source WordPress system the new site features content management, social media integration and email marketing capture.

As an ecommerce development agency ourselves, we’re very excited to be working so closely with the people behind the technology that takes the Magento system to the next level. As developers of Magento system extensions that are designed to deliver improved targeting and sales, we have started to implement their new technology on behalf of our ecommerce clients.

“We’ve been really impressed with the guys at Base. Predictive Intent is a new company seeking to make a big mark on a fast moving B2B market. In order to compete effectively with larger competitors we’ve had to punch above our weight and our online presence certainly has everyone in the industry sitting up and taking notice. We’ll continue to work with Base as we develop and launch additions to our product range. The advice and consultancy has really impressed us and helped to shape many of our marketing decisions.”

Neil Hamilton, CEO Predictive Intent

If you’re looking to get more out of your ecommerce platform and drive an increase in sales, why not get in touch with Base directly for more information. We’ll assess your current position and make a recommendation about your next steps and their likely cost. Whether you take them is entirely up to you.

The project involves the delivery of a secure management system that allows the team at BU to deliver high quality content to the home page quickly whilst maintaining a high standard of accessibility and usability for the myriad of users it attracts. The new system will help BU to maintain updates in an increasingly fast moving online marketing environment.

Bournemouth University have recently been nominated the UK’s Number One New University and Base are excited to be working with the University’s Marketing & Communications department to deliver this forward thinking project.

Penzance, Worthing and South Shields are among nine seaside towns to benefit from the latest round of regeneration funding in the Government’s Sea Change initiative.

Interior, graphic, wayfinding and retail design groups will be eyeing opportunities to work on new theatres, cinemas and cultural centres planned for seaside towns and resorts across the UK, including Poole and Bournemouth.

Here in Bournemouth, the Borough Council’s website recently announced that a project to invest £455,000 of the Central Government funding in Boscombe is now underway.

Creative lighting linking Sea Road and Boscombe Precinct, purpose built accessible beach huts, as well as enhanced wheelchair access on the seafront are just a number of projects that have been given the go-ahead.

Councillor Beverley Dunlop, Cabinet Member for Economy & Tourism, said; “We are delighted to have been granted this funding. This programme is essential for widening the benefits of the seafront regeneration into the heart of Boscombe. Our application for the funding demonstrated impressive proposals and the judges were particularly pleased on how we are recapturing creativity which will hopefully inspire other resorts to follow.

“Essentially this project will enhance the appearance of the area, creating a more user friendly and attractive ambience and encourage visitors who come to the beach to also venture up Sea Road and explore Boscombe.”

Over 600 residents have been invited to attend a presentation to find out how they can get involved in this exciting project. Further presentations to local artists, community and business groups are also planned.

“What all the Sea Change projects share is the ambition to get the English seaside holiday back in fashion and for resorts to recapture the flair we know they once had,” says Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment chief executive Richard Simmons. CABE is leading the Sea Change initiative.

“All of the resorts that have been awarded Sea Change funding have shown that they want to use culture and high-quality design to encourage people to not only live and work there, but also to visit,” adds Simmons.