Stupid

Yesterday we launched Albani’s new website. It’s called alive, and it’s a full-featured, super-social, interactive music calendar, designed from scratch with one clear purpose: How can we create something relevant for the young music loving youth, and make them use our site on a daily basis.

And although this seems noble and quite straightfoward, it’s a giant leap in terms of classical corporate thinking. Here’s why:

1. Courage. Albani has abandoned the classical corporate way of doing things. Where a corporate website normally showcases the company’s products and mission statement, Albani has shown the courage to do quite the opposite: Place themselves in the background, and give room to something that is of interest to the people around them. Beer is a commodity. The value of their brand is to be found on everything related to drinking beer. Music for instance. This move takes courage.

2. Relevance. To create something succesful, useful and unique for an audience, it must be highly relevant and offer something that cannot be found elsewhere. Creating relevant content requires tough decisions and Albani has taken a lot. Is it for instance, ok for a beer brand to decide what is good and what is bad music. The answer is undoubtedly yes, ’cause that makes them relevant. Having an opinion is what creates character.

3. Design. Although content is king, design is also of significant importance – especially when it serves a purpose. In this respect we have worked a lot with the synergy that can be created between the audience, the venues, the promoters and Albani. Social software and Albani’s presence in real life, sponsoring most music events on Funen, has made it possible to create a natural link between online media and real events. In the time to come, there will be a lot of work behind the scenes to improve and nurture this synergy. This is what essentially can result in a burst of the cultural level in our region.

4. Perspective. What’s next? You should see our wishlist of most wanted features – this website can be expanded with so much cool stuff that it hurts! Music player with music related to your interests, sms reminders, community features, rating systems, live video from concerts, iphone apps, widgets for you desktop, custom rss feeds… the list is long and we can’t wait to get going. 

We are proud to have led this proces from the first sketches and discussion to the first online version of the site. We think Albani has taken a huge step forward. Welcome to the new albani.dk

Some of the more corporate features, that will be there, although placed in the background

Visualization of a possible outdoor campaign. Copy / paste is possible, making the design efficient and recognisable.

Strategy and design: STUPID Studio and Jakob Kahlen
Code and implementation: ContentCube