FLEISHMAN-HILLARD
“Protecting Personal Information: A Guide to Business” is an innovative, interactive approach to an online government-training tutorial targeting small-business owners. Fleishman-Hillard was hired to develop the engaging and informative tutorial, which communicates the FTC’s advice for protecting consumer information. The audience—from car dealers to restaurant owners—needs to be aware of how easy information can be lost and stolen and the methods for safeguarding data. Through the use of video archetypes, open navigation and storytelling environments, the site immerses users in effective methods for safeguarding their customers’ personal information.

Art director Will McHenry admits he took inspiration in some unlikely places—Cap’n Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch cereal boxes, for example. “Things outside of the traditional realm of influence allowed me to take what could have been a simple click-through tutorial and turn it into a thrilling identity-theft protection bonanza,” he says. Building this site was loaded with personal firsts for McHenry. “Helping direct and run a video shoot … was huge for me,” he says. “Being not only the one creating the illustrations, video and graphics, but also the guy integrating it and building it all—I had my hands in the whole process and got a good look at it from all angles.”

With such a diverse target audience, site design needed to create an engaging and fun environment with a user-driven learning pace. The storyline can be navigated in a linear fashion, a nonlinear fashion or a combination of both, allowing all of the content to be seen either way and allowing users to learn as they go. Users can actively go looking for content, simply sit back and watch it unfold—or again, do both. The site is at once flexible and intricate, echoing the nature of its subject matter and how people deal with the topic of information theft. The heavy use of video creates a near-fantasy environment, which along with the playfulness of the concept sets this site apart in a big way. “We’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback from our client and the B2B market that the site was designed for,” McHenry says. “It’s been such a unique hit in a market not typically known for this kind or level of digital story­telling.” Dana Rouse

FLEISHMAN-HILLARD | CREATIVE DIRECTOR: MARC DIONNE | ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER/ILLUSTRATOR: WILL MCHENRY | VIDEO PRODUCTION: WILL MCHENRY, ANDREW KINNEAR, MARK HOFMANN | PROGRAMMERS: WILL MCHENRY, ANDREW MCCLELLAN | WRITER: KATHRYN DEVITO | CLIENT: FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION | WWW.FHDIGITAL.NET