It’s officially spring! As we were doing our spring cleaning at Pickaxe HQ,* and dusting our trophy shelf, it occurred to us… we have a trophy shelf! Does anyone else know about our trophy shelf? We should probably tell them!
Generally speaking, we’re more focused on doing our work than talking about it, and so our victories sometimes slip through the cracks. But last year, we won or were finalists for not one, not two, but three awards, all celebrating work we’re proud of.
So in case you missed it (or we forgot to tell you), here’s what we got kudos for last year:
*More a state of mind than an actual location.
We were recognized for our work with YES Network on Pick-N-Play Live and LiveLike, two real-time loyalty and viewer engagement tools that hinge on real-time engagement and exciting gamification. Both Pick-N-Play Live and LiveLike require smart connections between numerous supporting systems to ensure data arrives in sync and in time.
We supported the go-to-market strategy with brand and social tactics, CRM migration, and CX platform development, as well implementing a full CX stack, including data pipelines and data warehouse. With the finished product, the YES app can deliver in-game messaging and push notifications to keep users updated on their Pick-N-Play predictions and rewards.
Since implementation, as of May 2, 2024, the app logged its highest concurrent viewership for a single game on two separate occasions. YES Network has also seen that the average watch time per user per game is 78% longer than it was for the first 25 games of 2023.
(Spongebob beat us out for first place at The Drum Awards, and we can’t be too upset about that.)
Our work with YES Network also netted us a nod for our implementation of the Braze omnichannel marketing platform.
We won this for our work with Lee Enterprises and Pickaxe MIX, our Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) tool. Lee Enterprises is a media company with more than 350 publications and multiple verticals (including advertising and news). They wanted a way to gain greater insights into elements that affect their subscription numbers.
We helped customize MIX for the unique challenges of a local news organization. Rather than simply taking marketing actions into account, MIX made it possible for Lee to put traffic spikes and dips into context, making it easier to understand outlier events and respond accordingly. And this deeper understanding helped Lee increase their digital subscribers.
Since implementing their specialized version of MIX, Lee Enterprises saw a double-digit increase in digital only subscribers. MIX enabled Lee to identify when bumps in traffic were related to major events or viral articles, which helped them figure out when they could loosen the paywall to reach more users while still increasing subscription conversions.
We’re always working on a thousand different projects and so it can be hard to remember to accept our flowers. But sometimes it’s good to stop and recognize how cool our work is. Man, we’re lucky.
