The Communication Studio

Foreign Language Site

IBM : China Comm '84, Multiple Projects

In mid-1984 IBM approached us to assist them in creating a large interactive direct marketing site for their international marketing effort at the China Comm '84 Technology exposition in Beijing.

The Value Proposition

Ceramic Panda ad

Beijing Zoo map

Acupuncture pressure points

Camping Equipment ad

Lotion ad

Airlines Flight info

Science - animated obital paths

Chinese Language Direct Marketing

Our TCS project team worked closely with IBM marketing to produce effective direct marketing sites - in Chinese. We worked closely with the translation firm and pioneered a method for producing Chinese ideogrammatic characters efficiently in this early electronic environment.

As you might imagine, quality control on this project was a substantial issue.

IBM's interactive marketing site used both menu tree structures and keywords. We focused on:

  • IBM's product and service line
  • Bi-lingual information retrieval
  • Educational services
  • Prototypes of business applications
  • Animated advertising
  • Content Management

The presentation site was stored as a database on IBM's SVS-1 software for the Series 1 Minicomputer and was displayed through the IBM PC-Videotex software decoder.

 

Design Productivity Tools & Consultation: Prodigy

In 1984 we licensed our Textup Context Management System and other tools to Prodigy, IBM's early online services joint venture with CBS and Sears (It was known as "Trintex" in those earlier days).

TCS also provided additional software and new media consultation to IBM internally.