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Does a Healthy Heart Start with Your Wrist?

Take a quick look around and you’re sure to see someone wearing a Fitbit® or similar device. You might even be wearing one yourself.

Over the past few years, the popularity of trackers has skyrocketed, and the trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. But does wearing a device really help people stay more engaged in their fitness? And, considering this is American Heart Month, is it a smart solution for keeping people heart healthy?

Our team looked into these questions and discovered that how trackers work to help improve heart health depends on who’s using the device. Our research identified five distinct personas of people who use wearable tracking devices:

People with Chronic Conditions

This group tracks at a greater rate than all others and takes more action as a result of their tracking. Detailed, specific daily health reports on blood pressure, respiration, oxygen, sugar levels, and—you guessed it—heart rate and rhythmic patterns are all essential to managing health conditions.

Athletes

Athletes know that keeping a workout within a certain “optimal heart rate” not only increases endurance and performance but also maintains heart health. They desire a tracker that can measure their heart rate.

Weight Managers

Studies show that using a food diary can double a person’s weight loss.1 On the flip side, tracking calories burned is also very important, and these devices are an easy way to do it.

Caregivers and Their Dependents

Wearables for the elderly are especially valuable because they can allow people the freedom to live independently. In some cases, a tracking device that alerts their caregiver or doctor when they are in need through location, posture, and heart rate data may even replace expensive nursing home care.

People Undergoing Severe Change

Women who are pregnant, people attempting to lose a dramatic amount of weight, and people who are quitting smoking are just a few examples of people who can use trackers throughout a change. Some wearables can even track a fetus’ heartbeat as well as a pregnant mother’s.

So the short answer seems to be that wearables can be helpful in keeping your heart healthy—if you use them in a way that makes sense for your lifestyle.

From all of us at Fusion Hill, have a happy, healthy American Heart Month.

 

  1. Science Daily. Keeping a Food Diary Doubles Diet Weight Loss, Study Suggests. Available at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080708080738.htm. Accessed February 10, 2017.

| Research

Things We Love.

It’s the season of love, happiness and candy hearts here at Fusion Hill. This Valentine’s Day we’re feeling impassioned about many of the things we do every day. Here are 10 #ThingsWeLove to celebrate this Valentine’s Day.

 

  1. Creativity – No two clients or projects are created equal, and we love the challenge of creating customized, quality creative work based on solid research and effective problem solving. We’re repeatedly told that we bring true value to our clients and their consumers. From concept to execution, we develop solutions that are imaginative, captivating and, most important, effective.
  1. Travel – Across the world, across the country or across the city, our team loves to travel and gain insight to meet the needs of our forward-thinking and diverse clients. In our free time, too, we love to stamp our passports!
  1. Research – Our research team consists of a diverse mix – from MBAs to anthropologists to dreamers. Our multidisciplinary approach gives us a unique yet balanced approach to any challenge and makes our outcomes that much richer. Our research fuels everything we do – and is a key contributor to our success.
  1. Service – Giving back to the community is a value shared by all at Fusion Hill. We have regular agency days of service, including our recent volunteering at Open Arms of Minnesota on MLK Day. And, since we know the best is inspired from within, we pay each employee four hours per month to volunteer at the organization of their choosing.
  1. Strategy – Our research and design teams are linked to the strategy team, which enables us to fully understand the essence of our clients’ brands and develop an effective brand strategy or product concept. With years of experience working with some of the top brands in the world, our strategy teams often provide the backbone for the rest of our work.
  1. Northeast – Our office is located in a redesigned warehouse in Northeast Minneapolis, Minnesota. Picture architectural angles all in white with bright windows, a private rooftop patio and high-design meeting spaces that help us produce the best work. You won’t see a single cubical in the whole building. We truly value our neighborhood and love sourcing products locally. We often look to nearby bakeries, coffee shops and restaurants to cater food or sneak away for an afternoon meeting. Though we do think globally, we’re proud to call Northeast our home.
  1. Health Care – We’ve interacted with hundreds of consumers, patients, physicians, sales reps and health care providers, making our team experts on the health care industry: from medical devices to health care delivery. We love our work in this space because we get to be a part of improving health care, and people’s health overall, around the world.
  1. Financial Services – With years of experience conducting and implementing research, strategy and creative for financial firms, we understand the complex channels from broker to advisor to consumer. From the unbanked to savvy HSA investors, we strive to understand consumers’ mindsets and inspire smart decision-making.
  1. Consumer Packaged Goods – After myriad hours spent in grocery stores, malls and consumers’ homes, we understand the world of consumer packaged goods. We’ve used those insights to help develop engaging products and effective marketing strategies.
  1. Spoiling Our Clients – Our designers, researchers and strategists find themselves moonlighting as elves throughout the year. We love our clients, and we love to spoil them – always including personalization, incredible design and, oftentimes, sweet treats. We hope our clients know how much we appreciate them!

 

All of these things, and more, make our work that much more meaningful to us. Happy Valentine’s Day to all – may your hearts be full and your candy jars be overflowing.

 

XOXO,

Fusion Hill

 

Tell us the things you love! Tweet us @FusionHill using #ThingsWeLove.


| Culture

Name Storming: Trends, Audiences and Collaborative Creativity.

If you’ve ever named a child – or wondered why your parents picked your own name – you know just how important that choice can be. Naming a product or company is no different.

Over the years we’ve named everything from financial products to wellness programs. We’ve honed our approach with both creativity and strategy, beginning by analyzing naming trends and making sure we know the audience. We explore questions such as:

  • How savvy is the audience? Will it relate to a name that is trendy or one that is traditional?
  • Should the name be descriptive, suggestive, coined, tongue-in-cheek?
  • How should the name complement or differentiate from existing company sub-brands?
  • Should the name fall in line with what competitors are doing or be distinctive?

Of course, we also realize that sometimes a name doesn’t have to say everything. Intrigue and curiosity are often our most powerful tools.

With these questions answered, we then dive into our naming process. Gathering a mix of writers, designers, strategists and others, we explore words and categories that may work – letting our minds rove. Through several more rounds, we fine-tune suggested names. And in an age of hard-to-find URLs, we spend a lot of time exploring what’s actually possible to own.

Sometimes, the solutions come from those scheduled sessions. Other times it’s through scribbles on the napkins at restaurants. Or it’s an idea thought up during the morning shower or commute to work. As with anything we do that’s creative, we often find inspiration sparks at unexpected moments.

These days, naming is everything. In an age when trends are changing daily, it’s increasingly important to be intentionally relevant and impactful. Companies need names that can weather the storm of changing trends, resonate with their audience, and remain unique and creative. Our naming process includes the perfect balance of insight and imagination – and ultimately, the power that comes from allowing creativity to reach its full potential.


| Creative, Research

Inspired by a Great Leader.

More than 50 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing to help others?’” As an organization, we hold these words close to our heart, and we felt inspired by them on the recent Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

To embrace our culture of philanthropy, we chose to spend Monday with Open Arms of Minnesota. A local organization with a 30-year history, Open Arms of Minnesota cooks and delivers nutritious, tasty meals for people struggling with life-threatening illnesses including cancer, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).

After packing bags of meals into our cars, we spent the afternoon delivering a week’s supply of food to people all over the Twin Cities. Together, we completed 12 routes that delivered 1,152 meals to over 95 individuals, families and caregivers in our community.

It was a memorable day for our team, and just part of our ongoing commitment to community involvement – both individually and as a team. To find out more about the organization, visit Open Arms of Minnesota. And to see some of the other organizations we work with, visit our culture page.


| Culture

Unlucky 13? Not Us.

January in Minnesota can be cold and dreary – especially this week. Yet at Fusion Hill, it’s also a time of celebration. That’s because January 7 is our 13th anniversary.

We cherish this date, and we’re amazed that each year keeps getting better. For that, we thank you.

We’ve been fortunate to work with diverse, inspiring clients. To nurture smart, collaborative employees. And to be recognized for our unique culture.

So to all who have been part of these past 13 years, we share our gratitude. No matter how big or how small, each contribution has made us who we are.


| Culture

Getting Back to Basics: Knowing Your Consumer

Knowing your target audience is a common-sense cornerstone in marketing, but how often are brands really doing this well? In the creative world, marketers can sometimes end up developing collateral to speak to a client or company’s agenda. This makes sense – it’s what agencies are hired to do, after all. But in focusing only on the end goal, marketers can lose sight of the person for whom the materials are being created in the first place: the consumer.

As researchers, strategists, designers and writers, we are constantly reminded of the importance of going back to the basics and grounding our work in who our audience is and what they need by asking key questions, such as “What does our audience care about?” and “Where do the client’s goals and audience’s needs intersect?” Throughout projects, we continually return to these questions to ensure that our work and our message is hitting the mark. And we’re constantly reminded how important these steps are in guiding meaningful, impactful work.

In a recent project, for example, a health care client was interested in developing a digital tool to support consumers interacting with social service programs. At the outset of the research, they expected to find that these consumers had limited access to or familiarity with high-tech tools. By going directly to consumers, however, we discovered that the situation was quite the opposite. The participants we spoke to prioritized technology as a necessity in the modern world, even when finances were tight; they regularly used everything from mobile check deposit to Chrome Autofill. When we asked for their feedback, it became clear that not only did they understand the relatively simple functions of the tool the client had created, but also they wanted it to be even more advanced. To resonate with them, the tool would have to match the capabilities and complexity of the many other technologies they were accustomed to interacting with.

Building a foundation of real insights into your consumer is the key to developing a story that resonates. After all, there is a story at the heart of any communication. If that core message isn’t meaningful to the people who are being targeted, it won’t drive them to take action or lead to the outcomes desired.

These days, brand loyalty is often a thing of the past. Consumers are hungry for the best experience in every aspect of their lives and want to feel like brands “get them” in order to utilize a product or service. This new level of fluidity means that every act of outreach is a fresh opportunity for connection. The better we know our customers, the better we can speak to them in a meaningful way – and create real long-term engagement. After all, true storytelling comes from a person with a problem, not a business with an objective.


| Creative, Research

Our Work Here Is Not Done. But We’re Making a Dent.

We’ve come a long way from the days of Mad Men, but it’s no secret that the makeup of the advertising industry is still disproportionately male – particularly within positions of creative leadership.

Enter: The 3% Conference.

When the 3% Conference first launched in 2012, only 3% of creative directors in the United States were women. Since then, the conference has helped raise the number of female creative directors to 11% while giving agencies a clear road map of ways to champion female creative talent and leadership.

They made it a mission to teach men and women in agencies and on the client side how to address the issue in new ways and to offer something that has been sorely lacking for female creatives: a sense of community.

And this is where Fusion Hill enters.

We just returned from the 2016 3% Conference held at the Manhattan Center in the heart of New York City. The two-day event was filled with inspiring keynotes, professional development, themed tracks, networking and actionable takeaways.

This year’s theme was “What are you going to do about it?” and we are overflowing with inspiration.

So here’s what we are going to do.

Once a day through the end of the year, we will be tweeting micro-actions (small things you can do now!) to help drive the 3% number upward. Make sure you are following us here to find out how we all can change the ratio together.

@FusionHill


| Creative, Culture
 
 

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