The Cleveland Museum of Natural History with the help of the production team at Impact communications is proud to have recently completed the production of CMNH’s first Online Annual Report. Themed “Making a Difference through Science and Education” this departure from the traditional printed reports reveals an attractive, interactive, web-based user experience that helps existing and potential constituents understand the current standing of the museum while sharing its goals and ambitions. The report, through video, text, and interactive elements reviews a year of effective programming, innovation, discovery, and community engagement.

To view the report, click here.

Impact recently completed the installation of an interactive multimedia experience created for American Greetings in order to present forthcoming greeting cards to its retail partners.

Impact worked with engineers at Spyeglass (Minneapolis) to create a unique presentation platform. The multimedia program is rear-projected onto a chic, custom-fabricated 80-inch touchscreen panel that is suspended in midair by two thin, brushed-metal beams. This screen system complements the overall design of the presentation room. The simple yet futuristic multimedia program consists of greeting cards displayed across a black background.

Presenters touch the screen to slide through, select, open, interact with and close the greeting cards. Impact’s designers and programmers created interactive 3D animations of each card and its unique innovative features, allowing the audience to experience the cards as close to reality as possible. The program is dynamic, allowing it to be tailored for various uses.

American Greetings is the world’s largest publicly owned creator, manufacturer and distributor of social expression products.

For the twenty-second consecutive year, Impact Communications produced the annual Managers’ Meeting for Sterling Jewelers Inc., operator of more than 1,394 retail jewelry stores in all 50 states, and trading as “Kay® Jewelers,” “Jared® the Galleria of Jewelry” and a variety of regional names. Kay Jewelers is the number one specialty retail jewelry brand in the U.S. Each year, over 1,800 managers gather at the Coronado Springs Resort, Walt Disney World, Florida for this annual event designed to motivate, train and prepare managers for the upcoming holiday sales season.

Sterling has consistently chosen to partner with Impact in the development of this important strategic event. According to Jody Wolf, Director of Group, Business and Incentive Travel, “Year after year, Impact responds to our needs by offering us affordable, creative and strategic programs that effectively deliver our company’s key messages to our national management team. This is a long-term partnership in which Sterling benefits from Impact’s years of experience in developing targeted event, meeting and session programming.”

For example, this year Impact’s creative team helped produce five general sessions filled with high-end production value and motivating educational Executive speeches.

The opening general session delivered the key business messages, motivation and confidence in preparing for the Holiday Season. This session also introduced the theme of the meeting, featuring an original song written by Impact with an accompanying video featuring hip-hop dancers and many Sterling store employees from across the country. As the video concluded, the audience was treated to live beat poetry and dancing by Superstars of Dance winners, The Groovaloos.

Other meeting highlights included a general session that celebrated Sterling’s upcoming eleventh year as a corporate charity partner with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and a general session that featured an update on the Open Hearts by Jane Seymour™ jewelry collection. The Open Hearts session included a guest appearance by actress, artist and humanitarian Jane Seymour. You can learn more about Open Hearts by Jane Seymour™ collection by going to www.kay.com.

Impact provided meeting services for this event including Meeting Theme Development, Set Design, Staging, Speechwriting, Speaker Support, Logo and Graphic Design Development, Original Music Production, and Video Production.

Impact Communications, developer of interactive multimedia, web, video production, and meetings announced that it has been presented with the Telly Awards’ highest honor, the Silver Telly.

For the past 30 years, the Telly Awards has honored excellence in local, regional and cable television commercials and programs and the finest video and film productions, as well as work created for the web. Impact received this prestigious honor for its video production,“St. Jude Stories of Hope.” The video was produced for Sterling Jewelers, Inc. annual national Managers’ Meeting to create employee awareness and enthusiasm for Sterling’s “Partnership in Caring” with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Impact won in the Video-Live Events category.

In 1999, Sterling launched its partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and since that time has raised nearly $18 million for the Hospital’s medical research and patient care. Impact Communications has been there from the beginning helping to generate enthusiasm and commitment each year at Sterling’s annual Managers’ Meeting with a fresh and invigorating production.

During Sterling’s Managers’ Meeting, the audience of store and district managers learn the goals of the annual St. Jude fundraising campaign in a general session that combines executive presentations, guest appearances and video. The session is designed to inspire and motivate the audience to rededicate their effort to the company’s ongoing financial commitment to the Hospital.

Impact Communications’ “St. Jude Stories of Hope” video profiled two young patients, both sharing their personal experiences of their respective journeys through care and recovery from cancer. The featured children were recommended by St. Jude to serve as patient spokespersons for Sterling. During the session both patients were introduced by the videos leading to their live appearance on stage with Sterling leaders.

Mark Light, President and CEO of Sterling Jewelers said, “We congratulate Impact Communications on having received this most prestigious industry award. Since our Partnership in Caring with the hospital began ten years ago, Sterling Jewelers has partnered with Impact to develop creative and original media to inspire and motivate our employees to continually increase their fundraising effort for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Programs such as “Stories of Hope” reflect Impact’s understanding of Sterling’s role in helping the hospital continue its lifesaving mission.”

Impact Communications, in partnership with The Arras Group, produced EDGE, an in-depth, web-based tire training program for Kumho Tire Corporation dealers and sales teams. This media-rich interactive program provides comprehensive information on tire construction, technical differences, and consumer features and benefits to help sales people sell the Kumho brand with knowledge, comfort, and confidence.

This e-learning program is designed to let the student proceed at a pace that is comfortable for them and to let them leave the training environment when other business needs demand their time. It also tracks learners’ progress and rewards them as they complete and master the concepts being taught.

Using a combination of multimedia – audio, video, graphics, animation, and text – in a web based conveyance presents complex subject matter with clarity and effectiveness. The multimedia approach allows for robust content to be delivered in a diverse and engaging fashion, continually piquing student interest and interaction.

The application is supported by a custom database which serves two functions, one to track participation and awards fulfillment; the second, to manage content.. Much of the content that is prone to change is dynamically served out of the database so new products/product enhancements may be added or incorporated with a minimum of effort.

Response to EDGE has been very favorable, with hundreds of tire sales personnel completing the first three modules since its launch. EDGE is an ongoing project, with future courses currently being planned.

For the second year in a row, Impact Communications’ Meetings and Events team was selected to produce the annual national conference for Aspen Dental. The Impact team again created a first-class informative and motivational experience for an audience of over 800 Aspen dentists, hygienists, and office management teams from across the country.

In keeping with the spirit of the Summer Olympic Games, this year’s three-day meeting was fittingly themed Bring Your “A” Game. Held at the Turning Stone Resort in Verona, NY, the weekend-long event featured an Olympic- inspired “Parade of Champions” where Aspen regional representatives carried customized banners, and were given a hero’s welcome as they entered the ballroom. Additional ceremonial enhancements included the lighting of the Aspen Torch by the Senior Vice-President of Operations (wearing a “regulation” Olympic-style toga.)

Special guests and entertainers included motivational speaker and Olympic gold medalist, Jim Craig, goaltender from the1980 “Miracle on Ice” U.S. Hockey team; and the innovative DJ Ravi Drums, a high-energy percussionist/deejay. Perennial favorites, The Water Coolers, again provided customized corporate theatrical performances, expressly tailored for the Aspen audience.

Impact also produced the gala ASPY Award Ceremony that honored Aspen teams for their professional accomplishments and milestones over the past year.

Impact was responsible for overall show production and management, which included concept development, staging design and prop acquisition, as well as casting, scripting, technical direction, talent management, and creating speaker support graphics. Additionally, Impact wrote, shot and edited twelve video segments which were presented during the meeting’s opening module. The videos featured professional talent and Aspen employees, with shoots taking place in a studio, at Aspen Dental headquarters, and in several dental offices.

Aspen Dental Management’s goal, in partnership with its dentists, is to provide underserved members of local communities with access to high quality, affordable, and convenient dental care.

Impact developed another exciting and successful video production and awards luncheon for Nestle Professional and Minor’s.
The Chef Professionalism Awards is a luncheon, held during The American Culinary Federation’s Annual Convention, where individuals who excel and are the top in their field are recognized and rewarded.

Four top professional chefs, who are the regional winners of The Chef Professionalism Award, are the focus. Impact produces a biographical video tracing the history of each honoree’s culinary career featuring interview sound bites from each chef, as well as a professional voiceover narration, which tells each chef’s story. A jury of past winners selects and presents the new winner of the National Chef Professionalism award from the four regional winners.

The videos, which are shown at the luncheon, are motivational and inspiring, encouraging all attendees to be leaders in their field through performance, creativity, mentoring others, and remaining on the cutting edge of the culinary industry.

An industry leader known for high quality brands such as Hot-Pockets®, TRIO® and Stouffers®, Nestlé Professional offers customer-preferred brands, products, systems, and services to the food service industry.

Impact teamed with The Arras Group at The Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah to assist KTM North America in planning and producing the company’s Annual Dealership meeting. Among other things, Impact provided speaker support, stage design, setup and management.

This meeting introduced the newest line of KTM products to dealers from all over the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The highlighted product of this year’s meeting was the RC8 Super Bike.

Impact has been an integral part of KTM’s North America’s Annual Meeting for 2 years.

KTM Power Sports AG is a worldwide leading manufacturer of power sports vehicles. The company includes the Sportmotorcycle and the Sportcar division. The KTM-Sportmotorcycle AG, develops and manufactures competition off-road and street motorcycles. KTM-Sportcar GmbH builds the light-weight sports car X-Bow, KTM’s first step into the automotive field.

With more than 1,930 employees, the KTM group maintains over 20 sales subsidiaries and five joint ventures that distribute KTM products to their 1,400 independent KTM dealerships worldwide. KTM has won more than 140 World Championship titles.

Impact Communications created a new website to provide Emerald Hospitality Associates, Inc. with a contemporary, engaging web presence. Designed to instantly appeal to Emerald’s target audience, the site quickly provides access to pertinent information, in a visual format that reinforces the established quality of the Emerald Hospitality brand.

The website layout was built in HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Impact used a specialized WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing tool that allows the client to update their own content, eliminating the need for additional programming or access to a database.

The home page features a Flash design element that enables the interchange of imagery. Emerald’s internal web team will be able to switch and replace images to best reflect the company’s diverse and well-appointed brand.

Emerald Hospitality Associates is a full-service Hotel Management and Consulting Company that provides a wide range of specialized hospitality industry services. It was founded in 1999 by current President James R. Gerish.