By Annie Wegrich

Image by Suzanne Calkins

Win more efficiently: hire our agency. 

Let’s get right to it. Things are looking up, but the 2023 macroeconomic climate started less than peppy. Tech layoffs in the first four months of 2023 exceeded 168K—that’s higher than all of FY 2022. Many business investments are paused. Yet, regardless of the size of your payroll, you can’t skimp on innovation. You can’t deliver less to your shareholders, customers, and team. So how do you do more without investing in a new tool or hiring an FTE? You need a cheer squad that can put that “rah rah” back in your workload. Need to do more with L-E-S-S? Now is the time to hire the B-E-S-T.  

You’re busy. TLDR, it’s a good time to reach out to 2A:  

1. We have the experience you want to hire:  
   • Engage with a professional team of B2B tech experts, no employee onboarding required. 
   • Work with storytellers, designers, consultants, and expert program managers that are handpicked for your project. 
   • Rely on our practiced, tailored approach to asset and campaign creation.  

2. We have the time you don’t: 
   • Tell us what your marketing goals are, then sit back and trust the guidance of your 2A consultant.  
   • Your consultant will bring you in at each stage. We’ll show you what we’ve been working on by set deadlines.  
   • We thrive on feedback and can iterate with stakeholders or meet with SMEs for you.  

3. We’re here when you need us (and only when you need us): 
   • Connect with our bi-coastal team for breezy collaboration across time zones. You pick the platform (Microsoft Teams, Amazon Chime, Zoom, Slack).  
   • Add more assets to our workstream or change priorities. We’ll work with you to get it done.  
   • Reach out any time—we’re waiting for you.   

Resources might be limited, put us in, coach.  

At 2A, our expert team of creatives, project managers, and consultants form the perfect pyramid to power your marketing with fresh eyes and a lot of experience. Our number one passion is supporting the tech marketing goals of our clients and cultivating top talent by making 2A a great place to work. 2A is woman-owned business with a cup-winning culture. And, at our virtual table, everyone can sit with us. Let’s get started.  

Ready to rumble? Reach out to the 2A squad.  

By Annie Wegrich

Image by Brandon Conboy

The audience is settling, light chatter reverberates from high ceilings. House lights blink once, twice, and give way to silence. It’s keynote time.

Lights, camera, action!

The session launches. Video rolls. Enter stage center, a totally fresh take on video—2A’s user interface (UI) animation, just like this one.  

You, passionate business manager, and your CTO also in attendance both sit up a little straighter, this is not the brand hype video you expected. Animation, music, UI, with crystal-clear messaging. You look around. Everyone in the audience from executives to sellers, and engineers to marketers, is paying more attention than usual for a product launch.

Behind the scenes

Tightly targeting your audience is essential in successful marketing. Brands cannot be everything to everyone. But, for something like an event session, product landing page, or PR announcement, you need to resonate with a broader group.

The UI animation is your headliner here. It offers a concise and engaging way to show and tell what makes your product great. It doesn’t bog users down with multiple clicks. It doesn’t require reading. It’s easy to share and mobile-friendly.

Let’s go behind the scenes for a minute to see why these UI animations are so captivating. The animation frames and focuses attention on core product features and interactions. Then the UI-based visuals provide product truth. The audience can follow along thanks to a narrator who explains product benefits in perfect harmony with the visual cues. Lively music catches attention, while words on screen give context. And to top it off, the right fonts, closed captions, and tactical contrast provide enhanced accessibility.

The after party is just getting started

Consider the UI animation to kick off your next marketing campaign or launch event. Let’s make your product the star of the show!

By Annie Wegrich

Image by Brandon Conboy

An email comes in at 8:45 p.m. on a Sunday—close contact! No school tomorrow! A runny nose sets in—still no school tomorrow! Staff and educators are sick—and again, no school tomorrow! It’s a really hard and demoralizing time to be a parent. We believe in community safety, and we trust our educators and daycare directors. We understand the impossible jobs they have right now and the impossible feats they’re going through to stay open. But schools close. Here we are.

As a working parent of a toddler and baby twins, my partner and I are exhausted. We’re working in the armpits of the day around their runny noses. We’re cutting blueberries in half while coloring, all before trading the kids for the meeting one of us has in three minutes. We’re thankful for our incredible, graceful coworkers. We love our jobs and take pride in our careers, and we love our kids more. We’re in this together.

But, since the one long, isolated, day that started two years ago, parents have had it. Which doesn’t matter one sneeze, because our situations are far from over. Therefore, we hope you enjoy a little laughter—may it keep us from crying.

2A gives you: Things our at-home-children have done to derail our workdays

Live interruptions during team calls:

“MAMA I HAVE TO POOP” (Sophia, 2.5)

“We’re moving to Wisconsin!” (Rowan, 2.5)

“Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto, Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto, Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto” (Oliver, 3.5)

“Hey Oliver mommy is going to be on a call now so I will need you to be very quiet for me.” “But I like people! I need to say hello to my people!” (Also Oliver, 3.5)

“Don’t worry, I can find something else to do” (Edie, 7)

“I can’t hear you; I can’t hear you; I CAN’T HEAR YOU” (Anonymous teen, 17)

“Can we pretend I’m a half snake man and we live in the calamity ages?” (August, 8)

Live, unfortunate actions during video calls:

Repeatedly ripping a headset out of my ears (Maren, 1)

Throwing up all over, and inside, my shirt (Maren, 1)

Slot machining* peas onto my computer (Evelyn, 1)

*Slot machining: when Evelyn smiles while eating and shoots whatever unchewed food all over you like you won a prize.

Pulling my shirt ALL THE WAY down in a passionate ask to be picked up (Gil, 1.5)

Dropping an English muffin, jam-side-down, on the carpet (Sophia, 2.5)

Taking a child into a public bathroom before remembering to turn off video (Anonymous potty-training mom, child 2.5)

Silently watching hour 6 of anime (August, 8)

Text messages from children, received during working hours:

“DADYWANRUGONETOBEDAMWATH?” (Victor, 6) (Translation: Daddy when are you going to be done with work?)

“Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto, Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto, Idon’twanttoidon’tneedto. OMG MOM.” (Maya, 15)

“How do I know when I’m bleeding so much I have to go to the ER?” (Anonymous young adult, 23)

“Have you noticed that my lazy eye isn’t as open as my other eye before? Look at this picture.” (Anonymous teen, 17)

“The tabs on my car are going to expire.” (Abby, 20)

“I just lost my sense of taste and smell” (Anna, 31)

“Would you like to go with Anna and me to Vegas?” (Kat, 33)

Conclusion: There isn’t just one, because we’re still collecting more great, painful, and hilarious moments of humanity. Maybe there is a message here about being nice to people, not knowing what they’re going through. Maybe it’s that kids are awesome, and we should be really happy with the extra time we get with them. I hope it’s knowing that when your chaos feels isolated, you’re never alone. At least, I’m happy I invested in a mini carpet steamer because the jam-down English muffin, vomit-volcano, and slot-machine pea incidents, all mine.

By Annie Wegrich

The words “I see two” really shook up our plans last year when the doctor told us that our future baby was actually going to be babies. Twins. We were already the elated parents of an almost one-year-old. Fast forward nine months, and we plunged into the waters of three tiny kiddos and only two arms. So, we came up with a simple solution: become an octopus. With 8 arms, we could hold three little ones, cook dinner, and maybe brush our hair. “Octopus” is now a household verb (“I’m going for a run, can you Octopus?”).

All of our worlds changed significantly in the last year, and we’ve all had to shake up the way we do things. We’re balancing working from home with disrupted childcare, dog walks, and a new reliance on takeout. Thank goodness for the podcast, right? An on-the-go, always-on way to hear news, learn something new, and keep up with the cool kids. With no time, and no hands, short episodes of my favorite podcasts shook up my way of engaging with what’s important to me.

From 0 hands to 8 arms – with 2 earbuds

Which takes me to: Podcasts are the octopuses of marketing, and your employees and customers are listening. As a marketer, podcasts enable you to extend your reach and wrap your tentacles around your over-taxed audience. Swim with me while I share an eight-armed answer to why you should add a podcast series to your marketing ocean (and dive deeper if your toe is in the podcast water.)

1. Podcasts make marketing personal and allow you to share your story or pump your products in a way that feels one-on-one to your listener.
2. You enable your audience to engage on their terms, and likely, on their phones, while commuting, doing chores around the house, or working out. You are not inconveniencing them or interfering with their schedules—a major plus for those with busy lives.
3. Podcasts are a great medium for establishing thought leadership and highlighting your expertise in the market via a series of entertaining, deep-dive stories.
4. Each episode has a purpose, whether you’re interviewing a different industry expert, highlighting a company value or success story, or guiding your customers through new features, each episode in a podcast series can serve to educate and inspire your listeners.
5. Subscribers automatically get new episodes as you publish for easy, continued engagement.
6. Podcasts are as versatile as a mollusk and appropriate for stories targeted at prospective or current customers, industry experts, or even broadcast internally to your employees.
7. Audio is an accessible option for the vision impaired or anyone with screen fatigue.
8. 80% of listeners finish podcast episodes and when they’re done, these listeners can follow you on social and re-share your content.

2A knows octopuses

2A can help you create your marketing octopuses. Podcasts are swimmingly delightful stories, and we’re storytellers who know how to make a splash. Whether you want to teach customers something new, speak with authority to product power-users, share technical insights, or tell company stories, we’re here to help.

Ready to dive in? Connect with us!

By Kelly Schermer, Annie Wegrich

Animations are blazing hot sauce in marketing today for good reason. They’re informative, persuasive, and add a spicy zing that keeps your company top of mind—in less than two minutes. With nearly two-thirds of customers preferring to watch a short video over reading a document (Wyzowl), animations offer the biggest bump for your brand. They have the potential to deliver a higher message density (think Scoville Heat Units) per second than other types of video by giving you full control over the auditory and visual elements as well as the interplay between the two.

A lot of animations today target the check-writing, decision-making customer at an organization. Typically, these animations stay at the organization or product level to help business leaders make the best choices for their teams. However, in the B2B technology space, staying at a higher level can sometimes mean burying the details of your main differentiator in technical wikis, docs, and blogs. In short, not giving it the marketing props it deserves.

This strategy can be troublesome as your offering gets vetted down the sales funnel. It forces developers and engineers, who are the key influencers and ultimate implementers of your solution, to slog through technical documents to find and unpack crucial nuggets. Who can blame them if they can’t find your buried differentiators?

A technical animation targets tech-minded influencers  

At 2A, we help B2B clients troubleshoot for these potential pitfalls by considering how a technical animation can be used to round out their marketing strategy. Technical animations target the developer/engineer influencers, homing in on a single feature or capability and describing both how it works and why the audience should care about it—in under two minutes. They can be especially useful if you want to:

Land a technical concept that’s not well understood and explain your product’s advantages

Demonstrate key features and controls you offer that exceed current industry capabilities

Investigate different scenarios and/or environments that might create new use cases

Our technical animations give you the old two-for-one punch by educating influencers about nuanced topics and promoting the value of your solution. If you’ve been relying on classic technical documents to help communicate what sets you apart, you could be missing a valuable chance to stir up more interest with a technical animation.

Spice up a technical story with us!

By Annie Wegrich

Ahh, high school. The years when we knew everything and were gracious enough to share our insurmountable knowledge with anyone, without prompt. Guangyi Li, or Li, was a typical high schooler in many ways. He knew everything, doodled the day away, and loved a good video game.

Temporary introvert

However, unlike the teen you probably were, Li kept his knowledge to himself. In fact, he kept almost entirely to himself. As a recent immigrant from China, Li didn’t share a common language with his midwestern classmates. Although wise beyond his years, he barely spoke outside of his family until he went to college, lived in the dorms, and met a roommate worth talking to.

Rewarded risker

That reserved high schooler is not the Li we now know at 2A. The Li we know taught himself how to tackle big challenges, like learning English in college, and how to take on big risks, like moving to Seattle without a job or a place to live.

Marketing asset

The Li we know is brilliantly artistic and laugh-out-loud funny. We’re so glad he sought 2A to advance his skills by working across industries and media, because really, we were seeking Li. With a design aesthetic that balances the playful with the professional and comedic timing that charms every meeting, Li elevates our team.

Role model-modeler

Li’s dynamic commitment to design enables him to quickly shift gears and tackle projects with precision—like overhauling 20 PowerPoint decks in less than a week or diving deep to refine every element and effect on a robust website. But at home, Li prefers the still and small, zooming in to create tiny scale models with impeccable detail. We’re talking a 7-inch greenhouse with teeny-tiny, climate-appropriate plants and a coffee house with a detailed espresso machine that screams $5 12oz. Big or small, Li applies the same methodical approach and commitment to each pixel, PowerPoint, and plant.

By Annie Wegrich

You’re up at 5 a.m. to practice. You lace your skates just right, run drills, and learn to pass with precision. It’s game day, and your whole team is ready. The last thing you want to do is let down your fans by showing up without a hockey puck and casually eating a hotdog as you skate to center ice. That’s not professional.

It’s the same with websites. If you drive your users to a messy site that’s hard to navigate, slow to load, or, just plain boring, you might as well be facing off without a hockey stick.

2A is here to help. Our website development team plays every position from design to deployment. We recently designed and built a new website for The Sports Institute at the UW Medicine. Their previous website didn’t reflect their newly updated branding, nor did it evangelize their mission, initiatives, and research. Meanwhile, The Sports Institute database was bursting at the scripts, causing pages to load slowly. The user experience wasn’t set up to surface new content and innovative posts were lost among the pixels. The 2A team of consultants, developers, and designers grabbed our gloves and helped The Sports Institute build a game-winning internet presence (and, we got pretty good at sports metaphors).

Here are a few of the plays we made to give The Sports Institute a website that scored big and met their goals:

• Built a custom CMS that can support frequent updates
• Designed an intuitive navigation structure to guide audiences to their desired content
• Balanced photography and original iconography to keep visitors enchanted
• Prioritized headlines and copy to increase conversion and improve SEO

The result? An inviting and purposeful website that responds at slapshot speed.

Is your website in the penalty box? We’re that coach who will turn it around—can’t you see the winner montage?  

By Annie Wegrich

Every spring, my husband and I invite a growing number of friends to celebrate Passover at our table (which sits six, not 18—get comfy). Most friends have never attended a Passover Seder before. They haven’t dipped parsley in salt water or combined sticky sweet charoset with bitter maror. The Passover meal goes on for hours, and the process from matzo balls to macaroons is a lot of cooking for two.

So it’s a good thing I’ve been playing the role of executive chef for the past few weeks on a flavorful and complex project. Cogeco Peer 1, a global provider of essential B2B technical solutions, participated in three SXSW events last month, with the goal of educating tech leaders and avid gamers about their brand. The company wanted to power up their SXSW 2019 exhibition presence with messaging and designs.

Cogeco Peer 1 worked with 2A to plan, shop for, and boil a four-star SXSW feast. The smorgasbord kicked off with booth designs to grab attention and an event landing page to entice. The main dish consisted of social posts to drive followers to the Cogeco Peer 1 event booths and giveaways to delight serious gamers. Cogeco Peer 1 was looking to give conference attendees a taste of how they could power their potential with technology, and 2A had the menu ready.

Except, unlike Passover, I had a team of marketing chefs to pull off this feast. 2A designers, storytellers and consultants all joined me in the kitchen. Our storytellers concepted a theme that made stomachs rumble. Our design gurus whisked up 4-star booth backdrops, banners, and event boards. Our consulting team made sure dishes complimented each other, and everything arrived on time. The 2A team achieved full-scale event management, and I affirmed that with the creativity and wit of our team, nothing is off the table.

Headed to a conference? That’s on our menu.

By Annie Wegrich

I’m an Oregonian—lover of blustery days and practical rain gear. In the spring, the first sunshine brings a vitamin D rush, and summer the annual cringe when SPF 100 wasn’t enough. 

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. There aren’t many places in the world where you’re a few hours from skiing, sailing, and hiking. The only thing we’re missing (okay, not only) is a tropical breeze. Washington has miles of windy beaches, but they’re not exactly beckoning for lounge chairs and drinks with tiny umbrellas.

But now, when I step into our office, I have a little oasis all year round thanks to Carey Wendel of Bleedfoot Florals. A horticulturist with a fine arts background, she went creative and strategic when curating our selection of office plants.

Our new plant crew made their debut during our annual summer party this week. In case you missed it, let’s meet a few.

With bright skylights and 22-foot ceilings, our new space deserved more than ferns punished to corners and succulents struggling against florescent lights. We went bold. Walk up our stairs and expect a smile from two classically island Kentia Palms. Open the doors and the Giant Bird of Paradise will offer a firm handshake. Fun fact, this plant can grow over 12 feet tall. Why have 22-foot ceilings if you’re just going to waste them?

Now join us for a team meeting. Our best collaboration is cultivated over the humble Hoya Obovata, a traditional hanging plant with creeping vines and dark green leaves. On our communal table, this little plant has plenty of room to grow and explore—and by using it in an unexpected way, we’re inspired to break from tradition too.

Finally, the newcomer. Our Philodendron Monstera joined us right in time for our summer office party, and the lace-patterned leaves have left us craving swiss cheese ever since. This beauty will require a little more fertilizer, pruning, teamwork and strategy to thrive—just like our best stories. 

We take our plants and our marketing seriously. Let us freshen your brand like a tropical breeze.