Experience
The Ultimate Guide to Ceros
Who's Who?
Rob Brown Head of Customer Success EMEA / APAC
in your region...
Brett Grange General Manager EMEA / APAC
Alina Diaz Customer Success Manager (Pilots)
Joe Stubbs New Business Director
Alex Burnett Sales Development Representative
Margaux-Alix Gardet Senior Producer
Jessa Navales Technical Support Specialist
APAC hours!
What is Ceros?
Ceros is an experiential content creation platform that empowers marketers and designers to create engaging, interactive, and immersive digital content experiences without traditional development or code. Existing content tools limit creativity to defined boxes. With Ceros, you can start dreaming outside of them.
What is Experiential Content?
driving deeper connections with an audience, improving overall brand recognition and affinity. How do we know this to be true?
Purposefully designed experiences are more effective at
Purchasing decisions (yes, even B2B ones) are made by humans, humans make decisions based on logic and feelings, and feelings are formed by our experiences.
experiential content (noun)
ex·pe·ri·en·tial con·tent | \ ik-ˌspir-ē-ˈen(t)-shəl ˈkän-ˌtent \
Experiential content is digital content that is purposefully designed to create an immersive experience for its consumers through some combination of interactions, animations, embedded media, and storytelling. It encourages active participation in an effort to form memorable, emotional connections between the consumer and the brand or creator.
store
car
dinner
It was more
than a
it was a
experience.
shopping
driving
culinary
74%
of consumers have a more positive perception of brand, product or service after an experience
65%
of marketers see direct sales boosts from experiential marketing
98%
of consumers are more inclined to make a purchase after an experience
craziest
worst
best
Last night I had
the
Only 1 in 4
companies stands
out to consumers
Jack Morton
And the cost of failing to act is high...
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam lorem ipsum.
of consumers have chosen, recommended, or paid more for a product or service that provides a personalized service or experience.
Forrester
77%
bad
Enter the
+
good
Bad
Good
Close
View a
Digital Experience
Getting Started
Inspire
Find our premade templates and hundreds of examples of Ceros projects all in one place. Use the filters to find your industry or a type of experience.
Launch website
Educate.
Although we will be / have run through initial training the Ceros Educate site holds valuable resources, tutorials and developer tools when online support isn't available.
Originals
Find interactive content created by our in house editorial team on hot new topics.
Resources
Find useful design, UX and marketing ideas in our new resources hub.
Admin.
Ceros Admin portal is where you access all your projects, experiences and analytics. From here you can copy, publish, embed and view all of your content.
The Ceros Studio
The Ceros studio is a melting pot of creative suite programs like photoshop, illustrator and inDesign with a presentation tool twist like powerpoint and keynote.
What's New?
Adaptive Layouts
Text Syncing
Canvas Editor
Improved Animations
Image Editing
Getty Images
Access free for first 30 days and then can be bought as an add on to your subscription.
Studio App
+ Download now
Viewing Offline
Although Ceros is used to avoid coding, some of our clients like to add creative code additions to their pieces using our SDK or HTML customization. This example uses alt tags on the images to talk to additional CSS code on the page in an embed box. It's detecting where the cursor is on the page and changing the angle of the image accordingly.
Creative Code
'Non-latin' fonts
We've found a way to increase our effeciency when using cyrillic or glyph based fonts (e.g. Chinese). Long gone are the days when we need to import the text boxes as PNG's. Send us the font you wish to use and our font guru will create a version that can be uploaded to Ceros to be used as live text. You can also use Noto Sans as a default.
View 'Noto Sans' Preview
As Ceros is expanding around the world we have realised the importance of translating our content for global markets. Using our SDK it is now possible, using geo locate to serve different languages of content to your users. We are now also able to help you translate your content into multiple languages for low costs using our partner agency.
Translation Service
Aa
à
Professional Services
Let's collaborate!
• Consultancy • UX design • Content Planning • Design • Build (Desktop & Mobile) • Translation Variants
We can help with any part of the design process or completely take over a project that you're working on. We can help with the following:
We'd like to think we are experts in Ceros, we can assist at any step of the creative process, from ideation & wireframes, art direction, building in Ceros, through to variant designs for mobile or translated copies. You can expect a quick and professional service, best practice and innovation guaranteed.
Day Rates
Creative Design This would involve working with you to create a brief and SOW before embarking on creative concepts. An allocated Art director would work on this to ensure it matches brand guidelines. £650 $822* ( $1000 is US usual rate)
Project management and support included.
SLA's
24 hour response to brief with SOW return. From brief a project will be started within a 7 day time span. Project delivery will be as stated and agreed on the SOW.
Production Design This would be the production involved in building a design in the Ceros platform. This would be done by trained designers. Content and designs would be provided at the start of the project. £550 $695* ( $1000 is US usual rate)
Process
Project by project You can use Ceros services on an ad hoc basis. Each project will be scoped by our team on a briefing call and the number of days will be decided on before sending over a SOW.
A SOW will always be agreed upon before work starts on any project.
Booking a retainer Retainer based days can be purchased at any point during your subscription. The advantage of booking using a retainer means we can plan better in advance and offer discounts dependant on quantity.
Services Rate Card.
Scroll down to find out more about our professional services rate card for APAC & EMEA.
Before a project starts, we would send out a briefing document and create a SOW for the project.
Kicking off a project.
Brief Template
SOW Template
click here to download
We follow a quick and dirty approach to getting projects out the door strategically, and with a solution based design approach.
Once the initial concept, strategy and logic have been ironed out, we are ready to move into the design phase of the project.
Incorperate animations and interactions to the approved design.
Build
Apply the brand guidelines to the approved wireframe to create the experience's look and feel.
Design
Creative Process
By keeping the exercise analog and the sketches rough, we we're able to approach the challenges and the information from multiple angles. We will create low fidelity sketches to iron out strategy, logic, and content. At the end we will have an arsenal of ideas for the wireframing phase.
Rapid prototyping
Next Steps
Brainstorming + Prototyping
Step 1: Briefing (Questions, goals, limitations)
Step 2: HOW MIGHT WE QUESTIONS
Step 3: Discussion & Voting
Step 5: Rapid Prototyping
Step 6: Discussion & Voting
Step 7: Wrap up & distribution
15 min
10 min
Asking the question, “how might we,” opens up discussion about problems that we’re solving for and how to solve them. This exercise also gets the team on the same page in terms of what we’re working towards and how we might approach the functionality of the experience. It sets the stage for what begins to take form in the prototyping phase of the creative process.
How Might We Questions (HMW's)
Define the experience's content and layout at a high level without visual design.
Wireframe + Content
Wireframes can be sketched out or created in Ceros with basic hotspots and links added.
We check out inspiration sites: • Site Inspire • FWA • Awwwards • Dribbble We immerse ourselves with your content: • YouTube Channels • Microsites on google • Search PDF's and online docs • Latest stories on your website/blog We find the 'Best in Class' • What's new from Ceros clients? • Design Trends Searched competitors
Background Research
Best Practises
Page set up.
Desktop experiences: 1280px wide. Full Width.* Mobile page size: 540px wide. Full Width.
Things to remember...
If you are embedding an experience with a top navigation bar, leave enough room on your design.
85px
Font sizes on mobile must be above 20pt.
540px
*720px height if presentation.
View This Size Guide
Brand Toolkits
Colliers Brand Toolkit
An example of a brand guidelines created by Ceros for a global team
Red Bull Style sheets
Focused on interactive modules for the Red Bull team to copy and paste into new pieces.
Lipton Brand Hub
This example is the most extensive storytelling we've seen created for a client to showcase their new brand.
Creating brand toolkits, brand guidelines and style sheets has proven to increase productivity and effeciency.
Style Guide
Top Tips!
Improving effeciences is key to making the most out of Ceros. With a few cheats, hacks and best practise you can create more content, faster!
+ Exporting Assets + Giphy Capture + Pixaloop + Utilising Templates + Folder Structures
Pixaloop
Download Now
Creating cinemagraphs is a great way of changing static images to video content to liven up an experience
Path tool
Water movement
Bounce & smoke
Sky
'Export As' in Photoshop
You can select multiple layers in photoshop and export all at the same time using the 'export as' function from the menu.
Add assets to the asset export window before exporting all at once.
'Asset Export' in Illustrator
We have a wide range of templates on Ceros Inspire that you can download and reuse.
Copy and paste: animations, objects, groups, modules or complete pages.
Templates
Be tidy! Clearly identify what campaign or what project is in each folder. Keep an 'Archive' folder to keep old designs in one place.
Folder Structures
Break away from the boring static feeds on your social networks by creating animated and engaging posts in minutes using Ceros.
Social Posting & Improving Distribution
We use GIPHY CAPTURE screen grab animated content to create more dynamic posts.
MP4's for social posting
Instagram / SnapChat Stories
Add interactive Ceros content to branded Instagram Stories. Our customers have seen a large increase in engagement when users are presented with Ceros content.
Interactive Game
Integrated Microsite
Step it up.
increase engagement from emails by adding in short gifs.
GIF's for emails
Here are the articles covering this content on Ceros.com/educate
Read more about it...
What can I embed?
Launch presentation
CodePen Library
Design Trends 2019.
Launch experience
Market trends in Publishing.
Key UX Best Practices.
Wayfinding
Efficiency of use
ERRORS
Affordance
Visual clarity
Feedback
Readability
Accessibility
How does your user navigate your site? can they find what is relavent, explore, get back to the home page, and remain oriented?
Standard set of colors and points of interaction within the experience.
Meeting users with the terminology and reading level appropriate to thier role and needs.
Making elements of the experience accessible is key to helping users accomplish the goal of coming to the experience in the first place.
Validating the user, and informing them that the task they’ve set out to complete has been completed.
Designing for both experienced and inexperienced users and teaching them how to utilize your interactive brand.
Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.
The physical characteristics of an object or environment influence its function.
Testing Strategies.
“Does it provide my audience with value?”
"Is the piece clear and easy to navigate?"
"Is my final CTA/goal clear? Will the user be able to find the next step?"
The "get it" test
Task based TEST
Heuristic evals
This is done through observation and 'think-out-loud' notes that can later be evaluated.
Can users naviagate to certain sections and execute on given tasks? Think-out-loud observation with notes on what is and isn't working.
In-depth evaluation based on defined principles. (Ex. visual clarity, wayfinding, etc..)
Brainstoming
Prototyping
Testing
Implementation
Iterative Design Process
See how the trend lines are increasing as we learn from each experience...
The Detail
Use Mobiles
Use Desktops
43.3%
57.2%
Use Tablet
3.7%
Analytics: What we track
Ceros collates all your data and presents your data in an easy to use dashboard. Make changes and republish experiences to get the most from your content.
• Unique Visits • Page Views • Dwell Times • Video Plays • Click throughs • Outbound links • Inbound referals • Device usage • Visitor location • Browser usage • And much more...
What can you track on Ceros?
What this shows
The most viewed piece was the Mancuso piece.
Mobile views are dramatically more than desktop.
55s - The current average dwell time
Analytics: The Detail
Ceros Educate has numerous articles on how to read our anayltics and set up integrations.
Click one of the articles on the right.
SEO: The Detail
Check out this guide for everything you need to know about improving SEO on Ceros Experiences.
Optimisation Checklist
This guide has every final check you should make before publishing a piece of content.
What's Next For Ceros?
We want to enable teams to better organize and share experiences based on user types and roles within your organizations. We’re working toward a more adaptable Ceros to better serve your teams.
Enhanced user permissions
We’re making huge upgrades to our tech stack that will enable us to launch new features and bug fixes with absolutely no studio downtime.
Continuous Deployment
With the ability to see different versions of Ceros experiences, you’ll be able to better assess updates and streamline your approval and change processes.
Experience Versions
A CMS integration will link Ceros to your existing content management system, allowing your team to centralize your digital properties and handle all analytics reporting in one place.
CMS Integration
Looking forward to 2019...
• Expansion in APAC / EMEA • More staff in the UK • Technical support in EMEA hours • Innovation sessions / workshops • Product feedback & collaboration • Investment in AI & Data reseach
By going through this list, you may spot opportunities you may not have tried. Let us know if you need more training!
Ceros Features Checklist
Have you...
Added animations? Added your own font? Added an anchor point? Added a popup? Added a rollover state? Added an external link? Used video content? Added guidelines? Used gifs? Created a navigation menu? Embedded YouTube content? Used a lightbox? Created a carousel? Made an interactive map? Created a quiz? Downloaded to view offline? Tried our SDK? Used our support intercom? Added a form? Used chart blocks? Used synced objects? Used 'On View' commands?
Stand alone on a view.ceros.com link? Embedded on your site? Exported and hosted on your site?
How do you view the content?
Marketo? Hubspot? Google Tag Manager? Getty? Eloqoa?
What integrations have you tried?
For mobile? For tablet? For other languages?
Have you created variants?
After a few simple steps you can now tie your Ceros experiences to your Google analytics. Track hovers and clicks with no extra effort and see all your data in one place.
Google Integration
Check out everything that's going on within our publishing team. Find new examples, hot new topics and top tips for creating great content.
Publisher Newsletter
Every layout or interactive module has already been designed at least once. Find new ideas for your own work by seeing how other designers have created content.
Utilising Pinterest
View Ceros Board
By adjusting the colours, styling, formatting, content and fonts you can utlise layout styles quickly to create new templates.
Templating
Technical Support
Ceros has a 'Live Chat' feature any Ceros user can use for technical support. Ceros usually replies within 5-10 minutes. We have recently hired a new technical engineer based in Philippines. Jessa Navales. She will be covering APAC & UK times on Support until USA team comes online at 2pm GMT.
Mike Lacsamana Technical Support Specialist
ChartBlocks.
In 2018, Ceros aquired Chartblocks. It allows you to create HTML interactive charts from real data. Later this year we will be integrating chartblocks, into the studio, to add animation and better interactivity.
Register Now