Pappas Group

The Pappas Group is an interactive strategy, design and branding agency located in the Washington, DC area. Since its founding, the agency has provided brand consulting, creative and execution for companies and organizations across a multitude of verticals, garnering the team numerous industry awards and honors.

Anthony Pappas

After eight years as Senior Vice President/Executive Creative Director for Proxicom, Anthony Pappas launched the Pappas Group in early 2003. While at Proxicom, Pappas led the concept creation, identity development, information design and multimedia work for more than fifty Fortune 500 clients. Prior to his time at Proxicom, Pappas spent seven years in ‘traditional advertising,’ collaborating with organizations such as Saatchi & Saatchi and Grey. Pappas was responsible for art direction in the film, television and commercial industries for clients such has McDonalds, Pepsi and Warner Brothers.

Pappas is a frequent speaker and keynote at design, branding and creative business conferences throughout the U.S. and beyond. Pappas writes a monthly column for the Washington Business Journal (WBJ) entitled "Branding- The Bottom Line," and was named a Business Smarts Columnist in 2009 by WBJ

Clients

Pappas Group works with clients large and small, international and local, Fortune 500 and non-profit. Clients include: Blackboard, Mazda, Nike, Toyota, University of Virginia, Timberland, Renewable Fuels Association, Harvard Business Review, Georgetown University, American University, JP Morgan Chase, Discovery Channel’s Future Weapons and Deadliest Catch, dot-CO, Volvo, Oceana, ColeHaan, Geico, Kodiak Financial, Corcoran College Art + Design, PR Web, Pfizer, Alarm.com, GridPoint, Washington Kastles, Destination DC, City Shop Girl, National Trust for Historic Preservation, CSG Systems, Visual Sciences, Honest Tea and Network Solutions.

Automotive Clients

Pappas's Automotive Client list includes Mazda, Toyota, and Volvo Vehicles. For Toyota Pappas developed an innovative car launch. Working with their manufacturer and advertising agency Pappas used several pre-launch mini sites to deliver unique online shopping experiences for four of Toyota's vehicles, including the Yaris, and the RAV4 models. In the three months that the pre-launch mini sites were live, over 180,000 visitors spent an average of 11 minutes at the site. More than 70,000 users completed a full online car configuration, helping Toyota manufactures determine customer preferences that were then categorized by region and gender. 14,000 visitors searched deeper in the site, asking for more information about individual Toyota brand vehicles.

Education Clients

Pappas Group has planned and executed branding campaigns for education-related organizations such as American University, Blackboard Learning System, Georgetown University, Harvard University, and the University of Virginia.

In April 2010, Pappas Group performed a complete redesign of the Georgetown University of Continuing Studies' website. The overall objective was to create a more cohesive experience on the site and to provide clear paths to the specific content that prospective students would be seeking. Robert L. Manuel, Dean of the School of Continuing Studies at Georgetown believes “The result of the collaborative effort with Pappas, to make our website more user-friendly and attractive, was an award-winning success.” The functionality and usability of the new site structure allow students, faculty and alumni to connect with each other.

Pappas Group has also worked with Harvard Business Publishing. Pappas transformed the Harvard Business Review's online presence to maximize the impact of its rich content and deliver a unique experience to its distinct and various audiences. The 2010 REBRAND 100 Awards recognized Pappas Group's work, remarking, "It's[The Harvard Business Review's] website was out-dated and confusing, switching users between websites based on internal content organization rather than user experience

Pappas Group's work with Blackboard over the past six years outlines the maturation of a brand. Although Blackboard has evolved over the years from classroom software to software that manages E-learning, transactions, E-commerce, and online communities their focus is education. In their branding strategy, Pappas maintained that focus with Blackboard's iconic chalkboard logo. In February 2005 Blackboard officially named Pappas Group it's marketing communications agency of record

Media & Entertainment Clients

Pappas helped The Discovery Channel's Future Weapons, and Deadliest Catch series, INTERACT 08, and CSG Systems all establish and maintain brands in the media and entertainment industry.

In an interactive campaign, Pappas helped Discovery Channel's show, Future Weapons, generate attention and viewers in 2006. The campaign launched on December 15th with an online teaser commercial intended to draw traffic to the show's website. Online viewers watched a 30 second flash video before being told they would be able to gain full access to the website until December 25. The website was designed to incorporate interactive features and giveaways. The Future Weapons campaign was deemed a success when over 4 million visitors came to the site in 30 days

Pappas Group also worked with the Discovery Channel to create a browser-based dashboard to aggregate Deadliest Catch fan sites and user-generated content. Pappas' Catch Network integrates the best Deadliest Catch content created by fans, crew members and Discovery Channel itself. The Catch Network dashboard allows users to optimize their searches for real time Deadliest Catch updates. In July 2010, Anthony Pappas presented on Uniting Social Networks and Driving Engagement for Discovery Channel's Catch Network at the Online Marketing Summit in Washington D.C.

For CSG Systems Pappas Group designed "Content Direct," a video content platform that allows users to simply and quickly access details on Connect Direct features that are specific to their needs.

dot-CO Internet

Since November 2009, .CO and Pappas Group have collaborated to develop an integrated marketing approach and long term strategy to market the long-standing Colombia .CO Country Code Top Level Domain as "a new internet domain extension". The first phase of their launch, focusing on education and awareness of .CO began in January, 2010. Leveraging the theme that "Anything is possible in the .CO era...", Pappas and .CO leveraged promotion through trade shows, direct mailers, events, online videos and email to spread to word to small business owners, brand owners and web professionals.

The final phase of the .CO launch was on Tuesday, July 20 at 2:00pm when all domain names opened to the public. Previously slotted domain names were auctioned off earlier in the year, attracting more than half of the top 500 global brands, including Facebook, Twitter, and Overstock.com. The URL for e.co sold in an auction for $81,000. Only 25 minutes after opening to the public on July 20 .CO had registered over 100 Thousand new domain names. To date, over 600,000 domains have been sold and the .co domain is now being used as a primary destination for Overstock (www.o.co), Twitter (www.t.co) and others.

Awards

Pappas Group is frequently recognized with industry awards including several Addy Awards, American Graphic Design Awards, Webby's, REBRAND 100, Communicator, AGDA, W3 Silver and Print Magazine Interactive Awards.