Mid-Ocean News - May 8, 2009
By Alex Scrymgeour
In the year 2000 website development in Bermuda was just getting established and the firm emedia was launced to capitalise on the emerging market.
A marketing, website development and public relations company, emedia is located on Middle Road and Cobb's Hill in Warwick.
Jennifer Ward, owner, managing director and co-founder of the company, said the company was born out of necessity.
"We originally started as a website development company for practical reasons:.no one at the time was tackling website development in Bermuda," she said. "My then partner and I said, 'We can do this. And we should do this'. We quickly established ourselves as a company that formed strong relationships with our clients and produced quality work.
"From there our reputation grew and today emedia is a full-service agency offering services from print, radio and broadcast advertising to event marketing and public relations to account management and website development.
"I love the work I do because I have always been creative. Before emedia I had a management background with accounting and dealing with clients which helped when we started the company. My partner did creative and since he left I have new staff and other creative minds. I think emedia has a great team."
Although Bermuda is a small and extremely competitive market, Ms Ward said emedia stands apart from the rest of the companies with their talented team, exceptional service nd extremely competitive rates.
"We offer very personalised service," she said. "We offer one-on-one time with all our clients. Our Warwick location allows us to keep our rates lower than would be the case if we were based in town.
"The team I've built is strategic and each person's talent is specific. We also don't charge agency fees which a lot of other agencies do. This year, with people's budgets tighter than ever, people don't want to pay 15 per cent agency mark-up fees for no reason."
Since starting the company Ms Ward said she has worked on a number of memorable projects including one involving the Not the Um Um Show.
As a long time fan of the Bermuda comedy sketch group, Ms Ward was thrilled to be working with them and valued the non-stop creativity and enthusiasm they brought to the project.
Another project that was unforgettable to Ms Ward was working on the Bermuda International Business Association (BIBA) website, an international hub site for those doing business in Bermuda or interested in doing business here.
"We recently helped BIBA with their website. It was two days before they were supposed to go live and they were dealing with another website development company," she said. "The website the other company designed was a mess and BIBA hired us on to try to fix it.
"Our website development manager, Bridget Figur, stepped up and saved the day by fixing the site in time for the launch. She was the big hero to BIBA and to us as well, that's for sure. It felt good being able to answer the panic button call and help out a client who was in distress."
Ms Ward said people in Bermuda looking to get into the new media business need to know inspired amateurishness isn't enough for them to succeeed - what was a new, fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants industry a decade ago is becoming more professional by the day.
"If you want to get a job with an agency get some training," said Ms Ward. "Agencies aren't looking to hire someone and train them on the job. It also helps to be creative. A lot of people in the business have a fine art degree. With media here in Bermuda there is definitely room for Bermudian designers if they understand the technology that is involved."
During TechWeek emedia held panel discussions regarding website development and the business opportunities an arresting Web presence can provide.
"This is the third year of TechWeek and this year we were a sponsor," said Ms Ward. "We're holding a 'lunch and learn' forum at the Chamber of Commerce. We invited people interested in having a website developed to attend.
"We also talked about what to think about before getting your website setup and developed.
"We also had a Q&A session for attendees and our whole emedia team was there."