Challenge

For years TD Ameritrade Institutional hosted one of the Nation’s largest wealth management advisory conferences called, National LINC Conference. For their brand and website experience, not much had changed in 12 years. The brand was worn and the website experience had not been updated to accommodate mobile devices. They knew it was time for an update and asked us to spearhead the project of a fresh update; however, upon deeper discovery, it was more than simply a fresh coat of paint. The conference was one of the most beloved and well-known conferences and updating the brand meant an all-hands-on approach to managing it from start to finish. And we only had 4 months to accomplish the task before the conference began in January of 2019.

Solution

We started by collecting as many assets of the current brand that were available. This included print materials, conference ephemera, swag, and signage, and digital communications. We worked closely with TD Ameritrade’s internal brand and events team to be sure we gathered as many assets as possible.

The first goal was to dig deep into the marketing website. The site needed to serve as a communication channel for all events that were taking place at the 3-day conference as well as a lead-generation tool. The second goal was to understand what changes needed to take shape on the advisor registration and management system as well as the mobile app.

New Brand Identity

We introduced a whole new brand identity to the TD Ameritrade team. This new system showcased its flexibility across all the placements and sub-brands and how it would leverage the new look and feel. From the styles, colors, font placements, and ultimately conference treatments we help scrutinize every detail through the process. What resulted was an updated color palette, new logo designs, and font treatments. We also equipped the TD Ameritrade brand team with a usage style guide that allowed them to distribute and guide the new brand usage throughout their teams as well as vendors.

Marketing & Registration Website Updates

We created a visually compelling and updated user experience for conference-goers. During the discovery process, we identified the gaps in the users’ journey and looked to solve them with rich content and clear navigation. Along with our primary goal of allowing advisors to register for the main event, we made it easier for them to register for other activities and events as well. We also sought to make persistent the communication on the event dates, speakers, the venue and accommodations, and the agenda, which had historically been available in the mobile app only.

On the visual and UI side, we updated the site to match the new brand identity treatments, colors, and added subtle animations. Also for the first time, we added the agenda to the live site—historically this was a PDF download and not easily viewed on a mobile device. This was in part to allow the conference organizers the ability to update the agenda as necessary and for the attendees to use their mobile devices to view it at the event as well.

Final thoughts

It was a joy to see the final product up during the conference and the response was nothing short of amazing from the President to the attendees—at the event and on Twitter alike. The internal TD Ameritrade teams and the event companies worked tirelessly to introduce and implement what our team had created and envisioned for the brand experience. The website saw the most returning visitors and new registrations than ever before. In many ways, the success didn’t stop at the launch but went far-reaching into the ethos of the people that made TD Ameritrade’s LINC Conference a wild success. #NationalLINC on Twitter.

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Work completed with TD Ameritrade Institutional was done through Bozell during my time as Director of UX/Interactive

Director, Justin Henriksen
UI design & development, Brad Douglas
Brand development refinement: Heather McCain
Account management, Abby Lehmer

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