Former Premier League Footballer David Murphy joins skignz

We are delighted to say that David Murphy has now joined skignz as our 'Head of Sports Partnerships'.

The former Premier League Professional Footballer with Middlesbrough, Hibernian, Motherwell and England Under 19, recently retired from the professional game through a serious knee injury in 2014. 

Still in his early thirties, David is looking forward to the next stage of his life with his wife and young family after relocating back up to the Teesside area. 

With a number of other business interests outside of football. He is staying involved in the game and working as part of MFC Manager Aitor Karanka's back room team at Middlesbrough, scouting players and providing match analysis. Going full circle in his career and returning to the club where he joined their academy as a schoolboy.

Over the last 6-12 months David has been informally working with the skignz team, helping provide insight into the world of professional sport and where he felt skignz could become involved. This relationship has now been firmed up with David joining us as 'Head of Sports Partnerships'.

Si Brown (skignz Co-Founder & CMO) said:
"In this role David will be engaging with his extensive network of contacts not only in Football but also in the wider world of professional sports to see where 'skignz may fit'. 

Some areas of consideration are obvious especially around the 'supporters experience'. However by going behind the scenes at professional clubs, can the skignz tech help enhance performance, provide data and information that currently is not being captured or even present current information in a more visual way?"

One of the very few players to win silverware in both England and Scotland, David won the league cup in both countries.

David on skignz:

David on Joining skignz:

For more information on David's, professional career, please take a look at this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Murphy_(footballer) or see below a gallary of images of him during his playing days.

If you work in the world of professional sports. Especially around marketing, brand, advertising, experience, data and analytics, then please feel free to contact David on either +44 (0) 845 058 0519 or email in the first instance to info@skignz.com

  

 

Improving our UX, Design & Functionality

As some of you will see when either using the skignz App or looking at the website - change is afoot.

We are currently refining, refreshing and updating all areas of our UX, design, layout through to whole new structure to the functionality within the App.

Key areas that have already being addressed are 

• Intro Screens
• Camera View Icons
• Help Sections
• Menus
• Icon Rotations - Portrait to Landscape
• Profiles Layouts
• Increased functionality such as 'Face Down Map View' & 'Friend Maps'.

We are also looking at other key areas within the App, sounding activity and a programme of constant evolution. 

The last 12 months have seen us focus predominantly on the backend development of skignz making the skignz platform stable, improve accessibility, speed, caching, hosting, security etc…

Now we have focussed on the front end/UX design and overall user experience. A lot of this work we knew was required but also we have acted upon a lot of feedback from various quarters to help us further refine skignz, make it more accessible and easier to use. 

We really appreciate people testing and taking time out to feed back to us and hope that they continue to do so and even more people will join in. 

Our early adopters are helping us deliver a ‘skignz’ they want to regularly use, is helpful and useful to them rather than a ‘skignz’ we think will do the same.

Not much difference in the words but the impact and results are worlds apart.

We continue to develop the skignz platform with changes and updates coming on a weekly/monthly basis, so you should see further change in the coming months. 

We always welcome feedback so please feel free to let us know about your experiences by emailing us at discover@skignz.com

As-well as the changes to the look and feel of skignz we are also increasing the functionality. 

Last month we launched the in app ‘capture’ allowing users to ‘capture their skignz activity’ and either save to their device or share with others/post to social media platforms.

The key one for July is around adding the map functionality and showing where things are on the map when the phone is held facing the ground (so flat) this changes from the usual skignz camera view to the new map view.

In the coming months, we will be enhancing the ‘share & social’ aspect of skignz making it easier for you to connect with friends and share each others locations and access each others ‘skignz’ one that they have not made public.

As always we will keep you updated on future releases, updates and any additional functionality we have added.

If you haven’t already please take a look at the new skignz website www.skignz.com and if you have not either downloaded the app or taken a look for a while please do so. 

We would be very interested to get you feedback if you have 2 mins to email us at discover@skignz.com

Matching facebook with a subtle 'brand refresh'

As some of you will see when either using the skignz App, looking at the website or you have come across us on Social Media - change is afoot.

We are currently refining, refreshing and updating all areas of the skignz brand, from slight refinement to the logo (you may not be able to tell) through to whole new look and feel to the website & App.

Facebook have recently announced in the press a similar type of change to their brand, logo, imagery etc...

On first glimpse there seems to be no change but the subtle changes of font, thickness and weight all add to this evolution of the facebook logo, rather than revolution. 

They have also made similar subtle changes to their 'App/Tile Icon'.

Over the years many brands have changed their logos quite dramatically almost overnight. 

However some of the world's most iconic brands choose evolution of revolution. 



Their subtle changes every few years, alter their brand ever so slightly, so until you see them all against each other you don't quite realise the dramatic change.

So using similar logic as these globally successful brands and bringing all the skignz brand style under one theme, colour pallette and structure; We have evolved the logo, the 'App/Tile Icon' and all the associated imagery.

As you can see the changes are not immediately obvious, but the more you look especially looking at the old and the new side by side you can then see where we have tweaked, changed, tightened and improved all aspects of the brand logo.

The 'App/Tiles Icon' we have actually changed quite drastically, as the original one was not exactly within our brand guidelines and we wanted to bring everything inline.

The 'App/Tile Icon', colour wise is more inline with IOS/Androids style and layout but we felt that we needed the brand name on their and not just an icon at this stage in our development.

We hope you like the changes we have made and the direction skignz is taking, not only as a technology platform but also how we represent this through our brand. 

No doubt we will make further changes in the future as we respond to our users and their needs and wants, however we aim to maintain the same ethics and integrity of our brand through evolution, whilst our product (the skignz technology platform) continues to be revolutionary ;-)

If you haven’t already please take a look at the new skignz website www.skignz.com and if you have not either downloaded the app or taken a look for a while please do so. 

We would be very interested to get you feedback if you have 2 mins to email us at discover@skignz.com

As always you can take a look at www.skignz.com aswell as follow us across the usual social media channels.

skignz: #Glasto2015

Although skignz were not present at this years Glastonbury Festival, we had  number of friends and family attending, so to help them out and to further test the skignz technology, we ‘skignzed’ #Glasto2015.

This involved placing a range of skignz in different channels across the Glastonbury site. 

Channels included:

• Stages
• Toilets
• Water Points (Drinking)
• Emergency Contacts
• Entrances/Exits
• Bars
• Food & Drink 

Please see below examples of what those skignz looked like and who they could help this years festival goers….

Like our other main project activation the same weekend for 'PRIDE in London', we managed to understand a lot more about behavioural patterns of the users, channel content and make further suggestions of how skignz can improve for future events.

Again the activity was very similar to 'PRIDE in London' in as much as those that used skignz, found it extremely helpful and used it regularly throughout the weekend. People who downloaded and used skignz, did so for on average 1.5mins every 30mins or so, using as and when it was relevant to them.

So with Approx 175,000 people attending Glastonbury this year, next year obviously provides any brand with an engaged audience for them to ‘positively enhance their experience’ and build awareness for their brand.

People don’t want to be sold too or bombarded with ads, they are far more sophisticated in their approach these days and brands need to engage them in a new, innovative and meaningful way if they are to have any long term resonance with their brand. 

A further benefits for brands engaging with skignz and activating for live events is that once people have skignz, they can then use it at other locations anywhere int he world, allowing brands to inform them of ‘brand activity’ in other locations, not just major live events but also in everyday life. 

Worth thinking about for you brand managers that are currently looking at how to engage your audiences in a more meaningful and innovative way.

If you would like to know more about Glastonbury and how you might be able to attend next year then please visit their website: www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk

As always if you want to know more about skignz, please check out our new website www.skignz.com and the usual social media channels