frank. client success stories.

ING Financial

Internal Portal

An internal initiative focused on employee alignment, frank helped ING connect with their 8,000 U.S. employees in a new way: through an interactive portal on their employee intranet. Working together, we co-created an employee-written blog, calendar and monthly web-i-sode of success stories from around the company. In addition, offline marketing and grass roots giveaways helped keep the message alive and viral. Moving into year three of the relationship, frank continues to help deepen and evolve the campaign to enhance manager / employee relationships even further.

Testimonial

"We knew we needed to change the way we talked with our employees. Continuing cynicism about corporate motives, combined with information overload, made it increasingly difficult to engage our employees with traditional corporate communications vehicles. We knew we needed to ‘break some china’ to jump-start the conversation. Our discovery of the frank team came at exactly the right time. Our knowledge of social media was minimal, but our gut told us that this was an avenue we needed to explore. The team at frank has educated ING on both the spirit and "how to" of social media. I've quickly moved beyond seeing this as the latest ‘fad’ in technology to understanding the power it has to connect us all through candid conversations that are inclusive and respectful. While many have worried out loud about the web's power to isolate us as human beings, frank is one of the early pioneers to apply social media to increase our sense of community, trust and shared objectives."

Ruth Weber Kelley
Senior Vice President, Internal Communications
ING Americas

Hearth Connection

hearthconnection.org

A pilot initiative funded by the MN government, Hearth Connection fights to break the cycle of long-term homelessness. During the ’07 legislative session, frank helped HC with internal culture-building initiatives as well as created a video-centric site and supporting print materials that amplified the success stories of the program. The result? Hearth Connection successfully made it into the omnibus bill for the ’07 budget to continue funding of $13,000,000.

Testimonial

"Most folks would just laugh off the idea that organizations would actually strive toward an ideal like authenticity. But when you talk to the folks at frank, they tap into that. They gently challenge you to be the best organization you can be, and the best people you can be. Sounds crazy in these cynical times, but I'm watching it play out with the organizational development work they are doing with the non-profit I run right now. We've been in this period of major growth, and we needed to get back to the basics of who we wanted to be as an organization, as a culture, as people. At the same time, frank is helping us tell a story of who we are that is richer and deeper than we were doing on our own. They're fun. They're smart. They're creative. They're for real."

Jennifer Ho
CEO
Hearth Connection

Best Buy

Organizational Courage + Creativity

Collaborating on an initiative to reach and serve their Empty Nester consumer base, frank partnered with Best Buy to explore new business concepts and programs that would authentically serve the Best Buy Boomer customer. From experience-rich store concepts to non-traditional, technical connections, frank employed the values of 2.0 to help Best Buy learn how to reach out to Boomers transparently, genuinely and boldly.

Testimonial

"frank engaged with us on a deep dive for new concepts to serve our Empty Nester (Boomer) customers. They brought a fresh perspective on the demand for possible solutions to better serve our customers – in the areas of bringing a sense of community and the creation of various experience-based offerings. They are creative, engaging and have partnered well with us."

Mary Maurice
VP New Product Development
Best Buy

Concordia Language Villages

waldseebiohaus.com

To bring the first ever Passivhaus Standard-Certified building constructed in North America to life, Concordia Language Villages wanted to tell the story, show the construction and create a serious buzz. Through a blog, photos, video and a real-time view into the “computer” of the house itself, frank built an experience that helped keep the international environmental and educational community up-to-date on the latest, inside and out.

Testimonial

"Working with frank was our first exposure to social media and the entire frank team was exceptionally focused on making our experience with them a productive learning experience. In their work with us, they offered lots of personalized support and guidance. What really stands out is their creativity, their thirst for pushing the boundaries of interactive media and their flexibility in meeting a client's needs. There is no doubt in my mind that based on working with frank to get a sense for the potential of social media that our organization will push for more activity in this realm across the board. It’s where today’s market lives and not understanding the role of social media could be detrimental. And it’s easy to accomplish, easy to keep fresh and current, easy to connect with an immensely broad public that is interested in what you do, your mission and your work."

Martin Graefe
Director of Operations
Concordia Language Village

City of Plymouth

Organizational Development

The City of Plymouth, a suburb of Minneapolis/St. Paul, is a vibrant community that has experienced significant growth in the past decade. Their administrative systems and processes, however, needed to catch up. Through our brand of frank process redesign, authentic leadership meetings and true change management coaching, we worked with the City to evaluate its current -- and design its future -- state processes, redesign its admin organization and implement new support systems in areas including finance, budget / investing, human resources and public safety.

The Green Bridge

theperfectbuilding.com +

thegreenbridge.org

As a Passivhaus Standard-focused architect, Stephan Tanner serves a unique, niche market that is exploding: sustainable design. His vision? To bring buildings like his own BioHaus to colleges and universities across the U.S. through a new non-profit, The Green Bridge. Working through strategy, marketing and communications, frank helped The Green Bridge use the best of 2.0 to generate global awareness (theperfectbuilding.com) as well as create connections with potential, targeted funders, supporters, university boards and institutions (thegreenbridge.org).

Testimonial

"In promoting my firm (INTEP), a new project (BioHaus) or even myself, frank has been an eye-opener, a communication enabler and a powerful facilitator on the path to discovering other needles in the haystack of opportunity. Yes it's the new technology, but it's also been the creativity, inspiration and the hard-working frank team that's made a real impact for me."

Stephan Tanner, AIA
Principal
Intep LLC

Burns Engineering

Organizational Development and Marketing

When you’ve been a success in your industry for more than 40 years, you tend to develop a few habits. (Just a few!) Some good. Some not as good. So the leadership team of Burns Engineering renewed its commitment to revitalizing and re-connecting in authentic, frank ways with its clients in the biopharma, petrochemical and food & beverage industries. Based on delivering solutions that drive value and backed by important temperature-measurement products, Burns Engineering partnered with frank to break down barriers and open new opportunities inside and outside of their organization: campaign included re-branding work, leadership development, website re-launch, eBlast campaign, BEblog, new industry brochures/product collateral and refreshed trade-show experiences.

Testimonial

"We compete in a highly fragmented market with many players and we strive to compete based on our value-added engineering expertise along with quality products and services. As we set out to re-launch our marketing efforts, I was apprehensive. I didn't want to get caught up in the race with the other players in the market to produce a glossier glossy. frank took the time to listen to who we are and what we do, then co-created a marketing program that shared this with the marketplace in a transparent way. It was a breath of fresh air and a weight off my back. We already had something special within our company and all we really wanted to do was share this with others and invite them to come in and participate. frank helped us articulate those messages to our customers and prospects and also shared with us the importance of continuing the organizational development within our company. They helped us understand that OD would be import for us in sharing the campaign internally so that as we experience success, our customers and prospects wouldn't see a disconnect between the media that invited them in and what they found when they got here."

Jim Burns
President
Burns Engineering