“Maps tell stories,” said Peter Mayer’s Interactive Creative Director John Pucci. “In a very real way, when you look at a map you begin to write a story in your head.” At Peter Mayer, we’ve spent the past year exploring maps as a tactic that gives people a place, digitally, to write their stories – and then turn those stories into results for our clients.
Digital mapping’s capabilities and popularity have increased dramatically in the past few years, and Peter Mayer’s Interactive department was quick to start using this advancement in technology. For Pucci, this trend couldn’t have been a better fit, since he started his graphic design career as a cartographer for an archaeological survey firm. In that position he recognized maps’ storytelling potential.
Now, in a much difference capacity, he’s helping people tell their stories again – designing digital maps that will be the basis for someone’s next vacation or one that captures a person’s history of Mardi Gras, complete with geo-tagged sights and sounds of the celebration.
Lab Tested, Market Proven
Mapping may be a natural fit for Peter Mayer, but that doesn’t mean that new digital executions don’t warrant a bit of time in the laboratory.
“If you see us implementing a new technology within a client campaign, you can be sure it’s not a trial run,” Pucci said. “Our curiosity, constant study and experimentation lead to innovative new ideas that are tested and honed in a lab setting and, when perfected, passed on to our clients.”
A Map for Mardi Gras
We spent this past spring in the lab, testing new ideas and continuing to develop our digital mapping expertise. We leveraged a map interface to allow out-of-towners to experience Mardi Gras.
We had been experimenting with crowdsourced content development in a digital map environment and we pushed our test balloon, realtimemardigras.com, live on Fat Tuesday. The site offered visitors the ability to experience the festivities through photos and videos that were captured on the mobile devices of 20 Peter Mayer staffers, then uploaded to the site’s map-based application, where they were posted in real time.
A Map for Hot Summer Deals
In July 2011, we launched a map-based campaign for New Orleans Tourism Marketing, a Summer Deal Map to help promote tourism during its slowest season.
“The map-based interface used the Google JavaScript API to create a completely custom Google map,” said Peter Mayer’s Interactive Developer Matt Kyte.
We designed the custom map to help promote tourism, but also to be useful. The hotel deals were displayed geographically. In addition, the interface was preloaded with data related to different categories, like dining, live music and shopping. That information could be viewed on the map with the interface’s filtering system.
Pucci added, “By the time you saw a hotel’s room rate offer and had seen the variety of attractions on the map, you had likely already started writing the story of your trip in your head. You saw the hotel is a half-block from Galatoire’s Restaurant, so you would have dinner there. Another two blocks down Bourbon Street is Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse. This was something that people could actually use to plan a trip.”
A Full Circle Christmas
The launch of this year’s holiday campaign for New Orleans Tourism Marketing marks our third map-based project for the organization.
Like last year’s, this year’s campaign site features local actor and Mad Men case member Bryan Batt in a series of videos based on the Christmas New Orleans Style theme. Hotel deals, as well as Reveillon dinners, music nightlife and shopping districts, are featured on an interactive map. Clickable gift boxes provide map-based “presents” that encourage exploration.
See the 2011 campaign at: http://www.neworleansonline.com/holiday/