This document provides information about Saint, a digital agency, and their work developing the online presence for the Decode exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Saint was chosen for the project due to their creative and marketing expertise. They created Recode Decode, an interactive website that allowed the global online audience to engage with and contribute to exhibition elements, fulfilling the exhibition's goals of exploring collaborative practice. The website was successful in connecting with the exhibition's target audience.

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3. So, who are Saint?
We are a digital agency
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4. Within a world class adver9sing agency – Rainy Kelly – Y&R
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5. We believe that…
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6. Remember at school, people grouped together around the cool kids? The ones with
the latest toys or the best stories. The ones who were most fun to be with
The internet is very much like this
Be valuable and play by the rules
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7. The best brands blur the lines between product and promo9on
Branded u9lity, interes9ng content and stuff with social currency cease to be just
adver9sing but become genuinely interes9ng to people
Every touch‐point a consumer has with your brand affects how they feel about it, so
make sure there are no weak links in the chain
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8. Online you have to be transparent and honest
Brand culture should be reflected in the marke9ng.
Try to pick up on bits of your personality that already exist
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9. Fish where the fish are
Be social
Give people the tools to spread your message
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10. A good idea can go anywhere.
If you want a killer social media strategy – you need a killer idea
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11. But online, it’s not just about saying stuff. You have to back that up by doing stuff.
Broadcast media both online and offline – is very good at saying stuff {PRESS
BUTTON}
Digital is par9cularly good at doing stuff. Things like apps, widgets, communi9es &
social networks all help fulfill the brand promise
It’s about amplifica9on.
A seamless digital experience running through any work will give it a greater half life
and make the assets work harder.
Ideally this is combined with real experiences that evidence the brand’s value in a
personal way.
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12. We do build the odd website!
But ul9mately we propose what we think is the best solu9on for your business and
hope to prove that by delivering a decent Return on Investment.
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13. In doing so we hope to bring you closer to your audience.
Recode Decode is a great example of this in ac9on
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14. HAND OVER TO ANDREA:
Good morning, my name is Andrea Carr and I’m a Content Manager in the V&A web team, which is part of the Museum’s Public
Affairs Division. I was on the project team that worked with Saint on developing the online presence for Decode: Digital Design
Sensa9ons, an exhibi9on that was on display at our South Kensington site from 8 December 2009 to 11 April 2010. (and if you
didn’t manage to catch the show then, it is currently on tour at the Garage Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow).
Since its founda9on in 1852, the Victoria and Albert Museum has been dedicated to the recogni9on, cura9on and
encouragement of crea9vity. In more modern 9mes one of our key strategic objec9ves is, and I quote: “To promote, support
and develop the UK crea9ve economy by inspiring designers and makers, and by s9mula9ng enjoyment and apprecia9on of
design.”, and this objec9ve is something that we keep very much front of mind when embarking on new projects.
Ini9ally the Decode exhibi9on presented us with a challenge, as the target audience we wanted to connect with was not a
tradi9onal V&A audience – predominantly male, aged between 18‐30 and with an interest in new media. The exhibi9on was co‐
curated by noted digital crea9vity ini9a9ve onedotzero and we were keen that members of the digital art and design
community felt some emo9onal ownership of the exhibi9on.
However, from this challenge came several exci9ng opportuni9es, the first of these being the ins9ga9on of the first fully
integrated online project involving the webteam, Marke9ng and the exhibi9on curators.
From the outset we were strongly convinced of the need to produce a website centred around the concept of collabora9on and
crea9vity, and that had to have a sophis9ca9on and cupng‐edge appeal, if we were going to achieve our aims.
There were three main key messages that we wanted to translate into Decode online:
1) That it was an exhibi9on that broke new ground and was the first of its kind for a major UK museum or gallery.
2) That the exhibi9on allowed interac9on that was both playful and emo9onally evoca9ve
and, perhaps most per9nently in view of the success of Recode Decode,
3) That the exhibi9on explored the importance of collabora9ve prac9ce; from designers working together, to a global online
audience interac9ng with elements within the site.
We appointed Saint to the project arer a number of extremely strong bids from other agencies. One of the reasons for our
choice was their dual strengths: fresh and innova9ve crea9ve coupled with experienced and successful marke9ng know how.
Unsurprisingly however, it was the Recode Decode idea that sealed the deal for us. It immediately struck all of us as being the
ideal combina9on of the exhibi9on’s key messages yet being more than the sum of its parts. It is to Saint’s credit that we never
felt as though we were taking a chance with this idea ‐– it always felt like the right thing to do for the exhibi9on.
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15. All on a very 9ght budget
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16. The exhibi9on itself provided a rich source of inspira9on. We knew there were 3 key themes
that it was going to explore:
Code as a Raw Material would present pieces that use computer code to create new works
in the same way a sculptor works with materials such as clay or wood. This sec9on would
look at how code can be programmed to create constantly fluid and ever‐changing works.
Works include:
On Growth and Form (hsp://www.danielbrowns.com)
House of cards (hsp://www.aaronkoblin.com)
Interac2vity would look at designs where the viewer directly influences the work. Visitors
would be invited to interact with and contribute to the development of the works on display.
Many of them are sensory and show designers playing with the boundaries of design and
performance.
Works include:
Oasis (hsp://www.everywhere.kr)
Tree (hsp://www.simonheijdens.com)
The Network would focus on works that comment on and u9lise the digital traces ler behind
by everyday communica9ons – blogs in social media communi9es, mobile communica9ons
or satellite‐tracked GPS systems. It looks at how advanced technologies and the internet
have enabled new types of social interac9on and media of self‐expression. Designers
reinterpret this informa9on to create works that translate data into striking forms.
Works include:
We Feel Fine (hsp://www.wefeelfine.org)
Flight Paserns (hsp://www.aaronkoblin.com)
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17. The main drive for our crea9ve idea was the belief that this form of
art came from a completely different place that more tradi9onal forms
of art in a gallery. Tradi9onally, art is there to be looked at,
enjoyed, but kept at a distance and on the whole unchanging. We were
very aware that a lot of the pieces on display at Decode were quite
the opposite. They were there to be played with, touched, experienced
in a way that affects the art itself and viewers experiences of it.
This openness and accessibility resonated with us, it felt almost open
sourced.
Also what struck a chord was that many of the pieces of work used
plauorms and programming languages that were indeed open sourced.
Karsten Schmidt for example uses a language called Processing that is
very much community driven. Code is shared, built upon, revisions
made, and con9nually offered up to the group.
The final insight that we had was regarding the involvement of a
por9on of our audience ‐ the geeks. Geeks like to show off,
programmers like to solve problems, and the ar9sts on show were
heroes to many. We knew that if we targeted the por9on of our
audience who were on the geek spectrum, and invited them to show off,
they could help us spread the word organically.
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18. With these insights in mind and a reasonably small budget to play
with, we decided to put a piece of digital art at the heart of our
marke9ng campaign, give people a plauorm with which to immerse
themselves in the work, and for those who wished to, actually change
the artwork to share with their own network of people, provide them
with social currency of their own.
We wanted the marke9ng to reflect the audience and the exhibi9on
content as much as possible.
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19. So out of this strategy, Recode Decode was born.
With the help of the V&A, Karsten Schmidt was enlisted to create a
bespoke piece of genera9ve art that would solely live online. All of
his code was made available via the Google Code plauorm, and via a
small, targepng social media strategy, we engaged those people who
we thought would be best equipped to engage in this.
By doing this we offered those who submised a Recoded version of the
unique artwork the chance to be at the centre of our on‐going
marke9ng campaign, and to have their artwork hung virtually on the
V&A Decode microsite. A simple idea which played upon key insights
about our audience and their passions.
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20. Check out the video http://bit.ly/bo3xQ6
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21. The dynamic and engaging quali9es of digital ensured that the campaign remained
buoyant despite its limited budget, through crea9ng an experience that par9cipants
would want to share with their friends.
Digital was also used as a broadcast medium as the best Recodes were showcased on
digital screens on The London Underground and the newly opened Wes>ield
Shopping centre. We also used Augmented Reality barcodes to give people a sneak
preview of the exhibi9on and to draw people online from a printed invite.
S9lls of the digital artwork were used in all other aspects of the campaign such as the
printwork and invites, to ensure crea9ve con9nuity and enable instant recogni9on of
Recode | Decode.
Digital PR was also an essen9al part of the campaign, using a finely tuned blogger
outreach strategy we were able to spread the Recode message to 1.59million people
online with minimal cost. Through targe9ng influencers in the first instance and
giving them a preview of the exhibi9on we were also able to give the campaign
popular credence that it may not have otherwise enjoyed.
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22. Exhibi9on asendance completely exceeded all expecta9ons, the campaign helped
asract 95,000 people to the exhibi9on, over 230% of our original target.
‘Recode | Decode’ garnered significant coverage in press, including NMA (site of the
week) Shots and Crea9ve Review; however we were equally pleased to observe the
deluge of conversa9on that took place around the concept on blogs and via Twiser.
There were a total of 1,122 features across social media channels and 69 features
across online news/ industry publica9ons.
The online campaign reached a total of 1.57m unique users online. By invi9ng a new
younger audience to take part in the exhibi9on, Recode has given them new reasons
to connect to one of the world's greatest art ins9tu9ons like never before.
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23. Just a few of the accolades it received. But we don’t care about that.
What really masers is……. Next slide
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24. A nice fat ROI
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25. Which makes for a happy client
HAND OVER TO ANDREA
The response to the Recode Decode project was overwhelmingly posi9ve
and we believe, successful in engaging our target audience not only in the
UK but also globally. It also worked well with the other social media
aspects of the exhibi9on’s online presence – a page on the Decode website
(which, we are proud to say, was a New Media Age website of the week)
brought together authored and user generated content from Twiser, Flickr
and Vimeo. Even if people didn’t actually recode Decode, the fact that the
V&A, a na9onal museum, had ins9gated such a project gave both the
exhibi9on and the ins9tu9on credibility with the digital cognoscen9. We are
delighted that so many people share our enthusiasm and high regard for the
project, and hope that its success will engender further such innova9ve digital
work at the V&A.
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