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AirPods Trend

Since their release in late 2016, Apple’s AirPods have been flying off the shelves – and landing here at Fusion of Ideas, where we’ve been customizing unprecedented numbers of the wireless earbuds for our clients. We expect AirPods to be the most customized device during the upcoming holiday gifting season for the second year in a row – it’s an excellent portable piece of technology at an affordable price point for many of our clients. Customization options include the earbuds themselves, the charging case, and custom sleeves and gift wrap to tie everything together. Here’s an example of a recent custom AirPods project we did for a client that nicely showcases all of our available services.

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Inside Look: Dassault Falcon Jet

By Jennifer Fujimori

Each month, the Fusion of Ideas blog will highlight a unique client project. We’ll be giving you an inside look at each client and project, including the customization details, the project, and the outcome. Keep reading below to find out how we partnered with an aviation company at the top of its field in design and innovation.

Who they are:

Dassault Falcon Jet is a subsidiary of the French company Dassault Aviation, a global leader in the aerospace field. Falcons are known for industry-leading technology and design, incorporating comfort, speed and efficiency into each aircraft. The Falcon family of business jets, the first of which was introduced in 1965, delivered its 2500th jet in 2017.

Their customization goals:

Dassault came to Fusion of Ideas with a plan to enhance the buying experience for its customers. Before each Falcon jet is delivered to a customer, the aircraft is outfitted with a custom iPod Touch, iPhone and customized case, custom iPad, or all four of those items. The inclusion of the custom devices aligns with the company’s reputation as a luxury high-tech brand, and makes a big impact on the customer.

The process:

At the beginning of our partnership with Dassault, we created a system to uniquely meet their fulfillment and deployment needs. We procure, customize, and ship devices based on preset requirements. The process is seamless and efficient; each of these steps is completed entirely by the Fusion team at our headquarters in Lake Forest, which works diligently to ensure a high level of quality and accuracy throughout the process.

The outcome:

Each device and case is custom printed with the sleek Dassault Falcon logo. Upon unlocking the devices, recipients see a specially chosen app layout against a black background with the Dassault Falcon logo in white. The devices are preloaded with the prerequisite Apple native apps, as well as four apps that were selected by Dassault. The finished product is polished and professional, contributing even more to the unique experience of doing business with Dassault Falcon Jets.

 

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Milwaukee Brewers

By Jennifer Fujimori

The Milwaukee Brewers and their fans have a lot to be proud of. The team is currently just one game back from taking the lead in the NL Central division. Their closing pitcher Corey Knebel has recorded 14 saves this season. Legendary hitter Hank Aaron called Milwaukee home for his entire MLB career, and now serves as the senior vice president of the team. And perhaps what speaks the most to the integrity of this team is their commitment to giving back to their community.

The Brewers Community Relations program works actively with players and their families, coaches, and personnel to find and participate in events supporting various causes. Highlights include speaking engagements, youth baseball clinics, fundraising through events like bike rides and 5K runs, and a fan fest from which the proceeds are donated to Brewers Community Foundation youth recreation and education programs.

To recognize these achievements in community outreach, the Brewers organization presents each participating player with an annual gift. This year, the gift of choice was the sleek and lightweight Beats Pill+ speaker, which is a device Fusion of Ideas has customized for several past projects. When the Brewers club approached Fusion, their goal was to elevate the gift even further. They wanted the gift to be both a superior piece of technology and a token of personal appreciation from the team. With the help of mockup designs from our creative team, the client decided on a custom laser etched Brewers logo, which is a letter “M” with a sprig of barley underneath to represent Milwaukee’s brewery tradition.

The resulting final product sent a heartfelt message to the players that their team places a high value on philanthropy and giving back to the Milwaukee community. We couldn’t think of a better way to say thanks.

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The Rock Gives Back

We got so excited that we posted on social media, but forgot to include the news right here on the blog.  Dwayne Johnson, also known as The Rock, gifted custom Skyscraper edition Xbox’s to a group of amputees. He’s seriously a huge role model.  We wanted to share a clip of the video of him giving them away, as well as some of the really cool product shots we got of the project before it left our doors.  We love working on projects that are used to do good in the world.

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Neiman Marcus: The Ultimate, Interactive, Client Gifts

By Jennifer Fujimori

To many people, Neiman Marcus and other department stores might warrant the occasional stop when wandering the mall or looking for something in particular. But for an elite circle of customers dubbed the “Chairman’s Circle,” shopping at Neiman Marcus is part of a lifestyle – and one that comes with perks. Members of the Chairman’s Circle (the highest loyalty level under the InCircle Neiman Marcus reward program) must reach a designated annual spend using a private label credit card. Once they’ve met those requirements, customers unlock a treasure trove of exclusive benefits, including in-store dining, salon services, access to tickets for in-demand events, hard-to-get restaurant reservations, and premier getaways.

It was the last item on that list that Neiman Marcus sought to optimize with Fusion’s help. Working with the team at Neiman Marcus, our app developers created a completely custom mobile app for Chairman’s Circle members. When a user opens the application on an iPad (customized of course!), a message is displayed describing the purpose of the app, which is to detail the amenities available at Chairman’s Circle level. The app then shifts its focus to one particularly notable amenity: a complimentary trip to one of eight destinations around the world. Using the navigation at the bottom of the screen, users can tap an icon labeled “Itineraries.” This leads to a selection of clickable photographs with destination names, which users can click to view the details of the excursion and corresponding hotel.

To present this as a gift from Neiman Marcus to Chairman’s Circle members, we created a fully customized package including an iPad wrapped in matte silver Stealth Armor, a sleeve to house the iPad box, and a high-quality box with magnetic closure encasing the entire bundle. It’s the best kind of gift: one that contains another gift inside.

We have worked with high-end retail clients before and we dove into this project headfirst, gathering information from the client until we felt confident enough to build the app they were looking for. “Neiman Marcus knew they wanted to gift their Chairman’s Circle members with a free trip, but they were looking for a truly memorable way to package that information,” said Hollie Go, App Development Project Manager. “Instead of sending a letter or an email, this app is an interactive way for recipients to see full color photos and details about each destination.” With Fusion’s custom branding, packaging, and mobile app services, Neiman Marcus found the level of prestige they were looking for in a gift for their most valued customers.