Tag: Orchard

Australia – Digital creative agency Orchard has appointed Michael Di Natale, former managing director at conversational AI agency VERSA, to step into its newly created role of managing partner.

Di Natale brings with him 15 years of experience in the industry. Aside from his recent role at VERSA, Di Natale has held positions at the likes of Accenture and Isobar, before moving up the ranks to become dentsu’s executive director of experience, strategy, and consulting.

Moreover, Di Natale has worked across sectors spanning travel, finance, government, education, professional services, and utilities, as well as sport, and entertainment with clients including ANZ Bank, Australia Post, JB HI-FI, MCC/MCG, and NSW Government, as well as Qantas, amongst others.

In his new role, Di Natale will continue to build Orchard’s customer service offering and consumer division, leveraging the great momentum the agency has with existing clients Hyundai, Tourism Tasmania, and Westpac. He will be driving agency growth and creating connected experiences.

Commenting on his appointment, Di Natale said that the mix of talented individuals, excellent culture, and clear strategy and direction, has him very excited about what the future has in store. 

“Building meaningful, connected experiences is my passion and something that many talk about, but it’s rare you come across the team, capabilities, structure, and strategies in place to actually ‘walk the walk’ and bring it to life,” added Di Natale.

Meanwhile, Wai Kwok, Orchard’s CEO, shared that building connected experiences is at the core of their work and Di Natale has a proven track record in delivering digital experiences to a plethora of clients. 

“He has a passion for solving new challenges and building high-performing teams. With a diverse skill set, we are enthusiastic to see what he will bring to the table for Orchard in 2022. We know he will add not only great value to our business and our clients but to our people as well,” said Kwok.

Australia – Hyundai in Australia has partnered with creative agency Orchard to enhance its customer engagement on Facebook. The new tech developed by the agency is an AI smart assistant keyword recognition on the brand’s posts on Facebook.

The new Facebook chatbot is customer experience and smart execution rolled into two key user journeys. Its direct to Messenger feature focuses on helping users discover the Hyundai vehicle they may be interested in and providing a direct line of contact with customer care through phone support or via the enquiry process.

In addition to this, when users comment on a Facebook post with specific questions, the AI capabilities of the chatbot are able to harness the power of keywords and respond in real-time. The keywords trigger the Hyundai Smart Assistant, inviting customers to discover valuable information about the model or post.

Furthermore, Orchard has implemented an auto-comment response on Facebook posts, which allows the public to see when other users’ comments have been acknowledged by Hyundai.

Kevin Goult, Hyundai’s director of marketing for Australia, shared that conversational UI is redefining community management, and they wanted to extend Hyundai’s offering by providing customers with a helpful experience on social channels. 

“We are confident the Facebook chatbot created by Orchard will deliver a higher level of customer satisfaction and engagement with Hyundai,” said Goult.

The new feature is an Australian automotive first for community management, which aims to assist current and prospective Hyundai owners to interactively find information about vehicles while on Facebook.

Meanwhile, Andrew Killey, Orchard’s practice lead, noted, “Customers love the convenience and can become easily frustrated by having to wait online for answers. We wanted to create a seamless UI experience that engages users with Hyundai right from the start of the customer journey until the very end.”

Paul Balbo, the client partner at Facebook Australia, commented, “We are confident that this Messenger project will help Hyundai increase customer satisfaction, lower costs and ultimately drive sales.”

Just recently, Hyundai has unveiled its newest ‘Tomorrow wants its car back’ campaign for its all-new car model, ‘Hyundai Tucson’. It features the car’s futuristic look with the appearance of robots coming from the future to steal back what is rightfully theirs from 2021.

Sydney, Australia – In response to widening its brand experience offering to potential clients, creative agency Orchard has announced three new senior hires namely Gina Hughes as experience director, Alyson Wales as brand experience director and David Mugford as associate digital creative director.

Hughes has been in the industry for over 20 years, leading clients through human-centered design processes to create remarkable customer experiences. She has previously worked as an experience design director at Ogilvy for six years.

Meanwhile, Wales’ career began in the UK, founded in direct marketing and brand building. Since 1999, Wales has worked with some of Australia’s biggest brands and agencies, her client portfolio including The Economist, Tesco Clubcard, Roche, Telstra, among others. She was recently the strategy lead at Ogilvy, where she handled the account of American Express. 

Lastly, Mugford specializes in user interface design and experience, art direction and concept development, with a particular passion for crafting digital experiences that combine creativity and technology. He joins the team with over 10 years of experience, both locally and internationally, across major brands including Volkswagen, Uber, Target, Telstra, among others.

Speaking about the recent appointments, Tim Condrick, creative director at Orchard, said, “Orchard has always been a digital leader in Australia, always at the forefront, constantly adapting and changing to meet future challenges – bringing someone as talented and experienced as David on board continues that tradition and supercharges our ability and determination to invent better.”

Meanwhile, Mikaela Crimmins, head of experience at Orchard, commented, “Orchard has always been the home of different shaped ideas and this requires people who think about brands as not only promises but experiences too. Gina and Alyson strengthen an already diverse mix of thinkers, and bring to Orchard the right amount of experience and spirit we love.”

Australia – Our automobiles do a lot of things for us – they make life a ton easier. Add to that, that cars are a big-purchase item, regardless whether of some lucky spin of fortune, a car has been gifted to you or one that you bought with your hard-earned money – it no less took a hefty amount to obtain. Which is why, it isn’t surprising that a lot of owners ‘baby’ their autos; and just this recently, global vehicle brand Hyundai in Australia, in particular, has revamped its customer platform ‘MyHyundai’ to sing along to wheel enthusiasts’ tunes. 

Hyundai Australia, together with Sydney-based creative technology agency Orchard, has redeveloped the ‘MyHyundai’ platform to take the brand’s customer experience (CX) a notch higher. ‘MyHyundai’ is the car maker’s customer service platform that lets Hyundai car owners manage their servicing needs such as service booking, vehicle management, service history recording, and also serves as a means to place a call for roadside assist or just simply any help on demand.

At the heart of the new ‘MyHyundai’ platform is the call for personalization. Within the platform are helpful and informative content that add to customers’ auto quotient to become better car stewards. The profile that a registered user will create will serve as the basis of the content that will appear in his or her own experience of the platform. Not only that, in the bid of Hyundai to create an even more engaging CX, it has also gamified its navigation, where Hyundai presents tasks and grants ‘trophies’ for every completion.

The Digital & CRM Marketing Manager of Hyundai, John Duff-Gordon, commented, “We are confident that the new owner portal will create a meaningful space for Hyundai to connect with customers. Improving the ownership experience is incredibly important to Hyundai by making it more convenient, rewarding, and intuitive. Our aim is to make the joy of buying a new car last longer. This is just the start of reimagining what the future of ownership looks like.”

What’s even more interesting with the platform is that it lets customers create nicknames for their units and lets them add cars to their ‘garage’. 

Andrew Antoniou, managing partner of Orchard, said that in collaboration with the brand, they had wanted to develop an integrated digital experience that gives more rewards, support, and most importantly, more convenience to Hyundai customers. 

“Ultimately, the MyHyundai portal makes owning simpler, and belonging, more rewarding,” commented Antoniou. 

This isn’t the first time the two have collaborated on the automobile brand’s CX in Australia. Prior to the portal, Orchard has also developed an AR experience for Hyundai in the mid of social distancing measures. The AR experience was delivered across Hyundai’s most popular vehicles such as the Tucson, Kona, Venue, and i30, and Santa Fe, where customers were able to browse and ‘try’ models such as configuring their colors, place the car into their driveway, and most importantly, booking a test drive. 

Currently, the new ‘MyHyundai’ is exclusive to Australia and is only available on a web-based app. Users can visit through https://www.hyundai.com/au/en/owning/myHyundai.