Design Coup Inc. and Idhasoft Inc. Partner to Help Launch ZiptoGreen
The first comprehensive energy-reduction portal helps consumers reduce home energy use and save money
Atlanta, GA (Vocus) November 20, 2009
In today’s economy, the last thing consumers need in their mailboxes are higher energy bills. Unfortunately, utility bills have risen nearly 30% in the past five years, the biggest jump since the 1970s energy crisis.
This is where ZiptoGreen (http://www. ziptogreen. com) comes to the rescue. It’s the first comprehensive, easy-to-use “home energy portal” that helps consumers cut their power bills. The site was designed and developed for LaCour Incorporated by Design Coup, Inc. (http://www. designcoup. com), a brand strategy/Web design firm, and Idhasoft, Inc. (http://www. idhasoft. com), an international consulting and services firm that specializes in portal content management.
The centerpiece of the site is My ZipPlan, an interactive tool that calculates a consumer’s potential energy savings according to zip code, climate zone, home layout and more. This personalized reduction plan tracks the user’s progress and directly links to savings on energy-reduction products and services. Users can even schedule “next-step” reminders to be sent directly to their email inbox.
Design Coup (http://www. designcoup. com) designed the ZiptoGreen user experience to be seamless and consumer-friendly. “We wanted to move beyond ‘committed environmentalists’ and make energy reduction a mainstream consumer experience,” explains Bruce Miller of Design Coup. “The key was to make a statement that this site can save you money – as well as help the planet.”
Developing a brand experience from the ground up can be a dream job for a brand design firm. But according to George Farkas, Design Coup’s Web designer for the site, “The challenge of a start-up is that everything has to be created at once – not only fonts and colors, but the entire brand story. With the accelerated timeline we were given, there were lots of on-the-fly decisions, in other words, a pure act of brand creation.”
Idhasoft Inc. (http://idhasoft. com/) (formerly Enterpulse), brought its well-honed methodology to building the applications that make the site work. “We built a roadmap that clearly outlined, step-by-step, all of the processes contained in the site,” explains Jay Lyle, Project Manager/Analyst for the project. “In addition to building applications for the back-end energy calculations, the site had to manage information from a host of sources: retailers, utilities, state and local governments, news feeds, social media, videos and more.”
According to Julia Glenn Carter, founder of ZiptoGreen, “I came to Design Coup with a vision and to Idhasoft with a big list of what I wanted the site to do. There was wonderful synergy in the partnership of the two companies, especially since the brand experience and back-end functionality were often being created simultaneously.”
About Design Coup – Design Coup, Inc. is an Atlanta-based brand strategy and design firm (http://www. designcoup. com/company/philosophy. html) that creates marketing/design communications for leading corporations, franchise systems (http://www. designcoup. com/casestudies/wingzone. html), organizations and new business ventures. Located in Atlanta, GA (Decatur), Design Coup has been in business since 1998. For more information about Design Coup, visit designcoup. com (http://www. designcoup. com).
Idhasoft – Idhasoft is a software products and IT services provider, serving enterprise customers in the United States, Europe and Asia. Idhasoft provide services to industry segments including BFSI, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Public sector, retail and Telecommunication. With a reputation for high quality and reliability, Idhasoft provides a range of IT services, from Software Application Development and Strategic IT Consulting to Recruitment Process Outsourcing, and Implementation of Third Party Enterprise-wide products including Oracle, SAP, Cognos and TIBCO. For more information, please visit idhasoft. com (http://idhasoft. com)
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