Autodesk Tandem™ is the first true incubator project from Autodesk. The product’s development was approved and funded by a dedicated internal board and is the first of its kind to be launched by Autodesk. The Tandem team conducted a competitive tender process to find a full-service marketing agency that could support establishing the Tandem brand, designing and building the website, and supporting campaigns to bring the product into the public domain following successful beta testing.
After a thorough research phase, we developed brand elements aligned to Autodesk’s own brand while being uniquely recognisable within their wider product portfolio and the digital twin landscape. While developing Tandem’s unique identity, we also needed a way to connect our visuals with our written content—positioning Tandem as a unique product. This occurred before Autodesk’s rebrand in late 2021, so our design reflects the old guidelines.
Data and collaboration, key elements of the Tandem story, are expressed through enlarged, cubic pixels containing models of building design elements and data. These cubes are flexed and interacted with, representing collaboration and the different types of data that make up the digital twin. We deliberately chose a different visual approach from the ‘digital ghosting’ effect used to represent digital twins across the industry, providing a look and feel that Tandem could own and become recognisable by. To build up our communications, we quickly identified different audiences and segmented our messaging accordingly, leading us to an overarching brand narrative that could appeal to any of the established persona groups.
At the same time, we conducted the UX development for a new product website that showed off Tandem’s brand identity, features and value. Throughout the process, we found that, for the website to appeal to AEC Firms, Building Owners, and Operators, we needed to explain what digital twins were and how Tandem worked. The website also needed to house audience-specific value propositions, clear pricing structures, resources and mechanisms meant to register users for newsletters and free Tandem accounts.
The website UI was created by following HIG guidelines. We decided that Torpedo would host the website—giving us greater control and influence on the infrastructure, functionality and CMS going forward. The CMS was built to be fully flexible and customizable, catering to Autodesk or any non-developer, meaning that anyone with access could make content changes and updates quickly. By integrating with Marketo, Oxygen and Tandem itself, we developed free account sign-up flows, allowing for anyone to get started with Tandem without contacting Autodesk. The result was a beautifully designed, branded website, complete with intuitive user journeys, teaching users about digital twins and Autodesk Tandem and converting them to free account users.
The last step was to plan and implement Tandem’s go-to-market awareness campaign. The campaign’s focus would be on AEC Firms—as opposed to Owners—because initially Tandem offered them more value than owners, and it was also a more BIM-mature audience. To run an effective campaign, we needed to define Tandem’s value propositions and unique position within the digital twin industry.
As part of the campaign, we developed three core value propositions and produced static and animated ads based on them. We planned to feature LinkedIn, YouTube, and Vertical Press ads and targeted display ads driven by intent data. The Tandem landing page was populated with awareness-based content and a way to sign up for a free account or even download a newly designed eBook. Media out-performed industry averages on every channel, with content engagement and time on page both excellent, leading us to plan the second phase of the awareness campaign—to release in FY23.
Through our partnership with the Tandem marketing team, we designed and developed a unique brand identity, hero content and a complete website in less than four months. Additionally, the first awareness campaign for AEC Firms was met with a great deal of engagement. As a result, we’re in a strong position going into FY22—planning more campaign activity and updates to the website—while Tandem continues to grow as a product.