We were appointed to deliver a complete digital solution for Mitre, from the online international strategy to the WickedwebCMS platform and from search engine optimisation to the global file-sharing extranet.
The Mitre brand has been established for almost 200 years and today, the company's aim is to become the brand of the team. Built on the twin foundations of heritage and technical expertise and through maintaining a presence on the field of play via sponsorships and endorsements, Mitre, a British brand, is enjoying global success via distributors and licensees in 30 territories.
The project brief was to develop a new international digital strategy to ensure clear and consistent brand communication throughout the counties in which Mitre is present. As well as brand building, the aim of the website was to drive sales of the football, rugby, netball and cricket products.
Our strategy centered on delivering value to the users, focusing on the design to establish the brand personality and create the vital positive first impression, and on the content to build brand awareness and encourage visitors to keep returning month after month.
Our global delivery model featured rigid design templates to protect the brand's integrity around the globe, with flexible content areas so that images and copy could be tailored to the local territory market. A global landing page acts as the portal into each territory to ensure an easy and clear user journey and high organic search engine rankings due to the high traffic gateway. In this way, the brand now presents a cohesive international presence, housed under the Mitre umbrella, whilst tendering to the needs of the local licensees and distributors.
A key component of the global strategy is the WickedwebCMS platform, powering the global websites and ensuring a centralised management process, giving the UK control over how the brand is communicated around the world. With its multilingual capability, WickedwebCMS was a perfect match for the project, the flexible model allowing Mitre to roll out the international websites on one platform. Our transparent CMS pricing structure, based on the number of administrators with minimal costs for integrating additional websites, ensures Mitre achieves value for money on a long-term, and global, scale.
Increased interactivity ensures the user experience is fun and interesting. With a bespoke database, Wickedweb have developed the unique 'ball selector' helping website visitors to determine the best product for their sporting needs. UK online retailers are enjoying increased traffic with equal placements on the 'where to buy' page top spots, and integration with the Google Mapping API has improved the 'locate your nearest store' facility, both helping to drive sales of Mitre branded products.
The design brings the Mitre brand book to life, moving Mitre forwards online and engaging the brand's wide audience – consumers, partners, retailers and endorsees. A balance has been achieved between product and brand content and the .com website now acts as a global portal, sending traffic to specific territory websites that replicate the .com look and feel, with customised content, capturing the user's attention wherever they are. With the WickedwebCMS platform in place, the content is managed and updated by Mitre. In addition, Wickedweb have designed and built a custom extranet for the Mitre licensees and distributors, which allows them to share files and documents with partners, and we are already working on rolling out Mitre's first ecommerce presence.
Mitre's Marketing Manager gave us this testimonial: "Wicked Web have recently been appointed as Mitre's online partner for the development of a new Mitre website, global roll out strategy, content management system and an extranet. Wicked Web have been instrumental in the delivery of the project so far, and are a fun and dynamic group of people to work with. I have been continually impressed with their input into the entire process, starting with how they addressed the brief, their creative input and ideas, their planning and specification process and the actual build of the site which they delivered on time and on budget. The new site has recieved nothing but positive feedback from Mitre partners and customers and I look forward to working with them to deliver the next stages of our strategy."
