New media content development (and a hundred other things)

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Dango is a UK-based new media creative content group helping, nay making people and companies of all sorts define and clarify their own voice in words, pages and pixels.

More than your everyday streetcorner creative agency, we're a happy team of content experts, project managers and producers - with our very own wagonload of writers, analysts, geeks and usability beans. We scope, develop, manage. We also write, design, print, proof and produce.

Dango can take your mindblowing idea and bring it safely into the world of bottlenecks, regulators and ROI. We can get your new application or website or foothill of content ready before you can say 'Salamander'.

Take a closer look at what we do.

About Dango

Dango was founded in late 2002 to supply editorial content services to 3. They're the global telecoms giant that made the first big dent in the UK 3G market - and we helped them get their mobile portal off the ground.

In 2006 Dango provided editorial, content management and usability brainpower to Channel 4 to help launch their widely praised VOD platform, 4oD.

In 2007 we refocused. We moved to a frankly smaller studio, bought new computers, hired a wise little art director and a clutch of overcaffeinated copywriters - and spilt forth in search of work.

Dango is not an ordinary creative group. We're new media specialists with a predilection for words and with mountains of TV, film, radio, mobile, web and print experience.

We're also extremely scalable. We work on everything from newsletters to fully fledged interactive multimedia websites.

Our clients ask us to conjure up wacky ad concepts. And to manage their mailings, edit their images, improve their brochures, produce their DVDs, makeover their corporate sites, redefine their production processes, litmus-test their outlandish ideas and steer their projects full-cycle.

We're entrusted with the daily running of complex many-function websites. We also work on TV pilots, whitepapers and press releases.

Learn more about our content services.

Our clients

We've been in turn challenged, stretched, flattered, heartened, honoured and fed by these fine people:

What we do

To paraphrase ourselves, we're hard workers. Dango found its first footing doing editorial content work for mobile media group 3 – writing copy, defining production processes, producing video content, moderating forums, managing a full-scale mobile portal.

We’re content experts – but we don’t stop there. We look at how all your words, pictures and things can better do what you really want them to do. We make it all clearer, or more dense, more subtle. We help you make bigger statements, move more units, sell more things. We also help make you Googleable, findable, more accessible.

Dango project manages with Prince2 (and our own hand-tailored, inimitable) methodologies. We produce websites at once standards-compliant, efficient, slick and (often) a little different, clear of the mainstream runoff.

Our writers, designers and editors have worked on big-budget product launches and multi-language, global website rewrites. They've also worked on first-splash affairs for teeny weeny start-ups.

Dango produces both giant and dinky ad campaigns. We conjure up newsletters and send them out to the masses. We also make brochures, banners and print adverts. We come up with wild and deadly ad copy. We perform feats of arrow-accurate writing, rewriting and proofreading. And, at this moment, we all cycle to work.

Find out more.

Projects

We bring modern, Prince2 baseline management methods to every project, and we never use canned solutions.

A TYPICAL NUTSHELL:

  • gather comprehensive business requirements
  • define project scope
  • create the solution
  • define post-launch operational procedures
  • implement your product on time

Design

Dango uses a network of hand-picked regulars to round out a complete design service.

  • design-and-build from scratch
  • image editing
  • design for print
  • UI application design
  • video post-production
  • logo and brand identity design

Writing

We work on a broad range of copy projects, with wildly varying budgets and timescales. Right this very moment, we're working on:

  • advertising copy
  • scriptwriting
  • website writing
  • presentations
  • exhibitions
  • direct mailers
  • newsletters
  • press releases
  • mobile copy

Editing

Our editors can do it all, and they often do. Fast and accurate proofing, studied sub-editing, expert technical editing, rigorous line editing, furiously quick copyediting.

We've edited manuscripts, TV and radio scripts. And fixed up vast ecommerce shops, whole online help sections, corporate websites and mobile content portals.

Also...

Running a top-to-tail creative outfit like ours means that we do much more than just project managing, writing, editing, designing and developing. Among our other treats are:

  • tone of voice workshopping
  • localisation
  • content management
  • newsletter management

Send us your briefs

We watch the inbox obsessively weekdays and Saturdays from 8am to 6pm.

So send in those briefs to switchboard@dango.co.uk and we'll get back to you within one working day.

Call us on the phone on +44(0)207 870 2677.

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Case study: Channel 4 on Demand (4oD)

Editoral management, copywriting, usability, editing

06/2006 - 12/2006

The client

Everyone knows Channel 4 as the coolest stop on the UK TV dial. Founded in 1982 by an Act of Parliament, C4's overarching mandate has always been to challenge the norms of mainstream television.

In December 2006 they launched their trailblazing broadband-based video-on-demand service, 4oD. From the very start, viewers were treated to hundreds of hours of some of the most groundbreaking, sidesplitting and mindblowing TV in history.

The brief

Nothing short of complete editorial management (and pre-launch sculpting) of Channel 4's developing video-on-demand service, 4oD.

We needed to define the tone of the service, help fill it up with saleable content, and see that the whole ship wouldn't sink after launch. Everything of course had to uphold C4's outstanding brand identity.

The results

A successful launch in early December of a truly pioneering service. 4oD has been fêted in the broadsheets and across wider world as the best and boldest of the most ambitious moving-pictures and what-not applications around.

Case study: uSwitch

Copywriting

Spring 2006

The client

uSwitch is a big internet price-comparison company. They made most of their name getting people good deals on their gas and electricity bills.

The brief

In the months before uSwitch underwent a full-scale redesign, they brought us on to help edit and rewrite all of the site's copy - all of the SEO articles, all of the prominently placed features, all of the UI text making the site someplace nice to visit.

They had a site style and a marketing strategy, project milestones to shoot for. We needed to fill a gap of several tens of thousands of words of copy.

The work

Working with uSwitch's own SEO and usability experts, we wrote and produced over 50 feature articles and ad spots to extremely tight deadlines. In the end, all deadlines were met, the site relaunched and traffic increased ahead of forecasts.

The work

Working with uSwitch's own SEO and usability experts, we wrote and produced over 50 feature articles and ad spots to extremely tight deadlines. In the end, all deadlines were met, the site relaunched and traffic increased ahead of forecasts.

Case study: 3 UK

Editorial management, UGC moderation, content development, copywriting, editing, marcoms, video production

2002-2006

The client

3 (Hutchison 3G) is a global mobile communications giant who were first to launch third-generation, high-speed multimedia services in the UK.

When their new-fangled mobile portal launched on 03/03/2003, we were already there pulling strings, editing copy, writing guidance text, conducting usability studies and helping to refine the company's content strategy.

The brief

Initially, we were charged with writing copy and otherwise producing content for the entire new mobile portal - all the welcome pages, all the UI, all the longer articles, headlines, captions and service descriptions.

After launch, 3 needed alot more done, both operationally and developmentally. They needed the new portal populated with content. They needed real-world production processes. They needed editorial regulations set and followed, third-party agreements honoured.

The work

First thing we did was get 3's launch content into shape - editing images and video files, defining optimisation specs, editing all the help copy into shape, writing all the UI text so that customers, for years beaten down by slow and bland WAP interfaces, would know how to (and want to) get around the portal.

We took 3's brand bible and drafted comprehensive editorial production guidelines, taking into account often nebulous regulatory prescripts and content partner demands.

Once 'Planet 3' had launched we took on an operational role, helping to recruit and run a team of editors and producers, updating image, music, text and video content, analysing performance metrics. We also continued to write marketing copy - things like email newsletters and highly visible website shop copy - and policed the house style guide.

We also played a significant, leading part in steering the company toward appropriate new portal developments.

Web advertising

We all remember the Great Escape adverts when 3 launched - and the eyeball-popping Hyper Asia series. From the very beginning, 3 had a surprisingly intense brand identity.

Part of our challenge was getting their online material aligned with the already effective TV stuff. The tone of voice had to be just right. The online presence had to be both perfectly timed with wider commercial activity, and vibrant in its own right.

Case study: Solar Revolutions

Copywriting, editing, marcoms, design and development

2007-present

The client

Solar Revolutions is a Brighton-based pan-European purveyor of environmentally cheerful and otherwise innovative consumer products.

The brief

They were looking for two things: a stronger web presence, and greater brand reach. And they needed it fast.

Solar had a quite clear idea of what they wanted, but needed their vision refined and their crazy time machine built to work in the real world.

They also needed a few dozen product descriptions, standfirsts, and other short and long pieces of copy.

The work

We stayed up way past ten one Thursday evening sketching out a slick new interface. Once we'd worked out the fine print, we set into designing and building the thing. In the end, three long days later, they had a new, minimalistic, search-engine optimised shopfront.

We did all the design and development work, image editing and cart integration. We also write, design and deliver their email newsletter.