It isn’t easy being green – unless you have Microsoft Tag. Lakewood Ranch, the largest green-certified community in the country, uses Tag everywhere – advertisements, signage, the monthly newsletter – as part of its commitment to being green and tech-savvy.
Located on Florida's Gulf Coast, the 8,500-acre, master-planned community has Tags in businesses, on real-estate signs, and even on the golf course. Model homes have Tags on their signs so that prospective buyers can view videos of homebuilders inviting people to tour their models.
"We think Tag could change the face of business, and enable consumers to get extra information about business or amenities in Lakewood Ranch," says Candice McElyea, PR and promotions manager at Lakewood Ranch. "It will all be at their fingertips."
Lakewood Ranch also uses Tags to replace printed materials such as brochures and maps. “One of the many reasons we used Tag was so that we didn’t have to reprint collateral to market our community,” notes McElyea. “It also bridges our offline advertising and marketing materials with our digital assets. Tag’s dynamic flexibility allows us to change the message or communication behind the Tag on the fly and use the same Tag that we have posted around our community without having to reprint everything.”
And Lakewood Ranch has still more Tag-based ideas. “We plan to Tag signs outside restaurants on Main Street that will either launch videos or take people to the restaurant’s menu,” says McElyea. “We are also starting to produce a retail line – hats, visors, golf towels, coffee mugs – with Tags on them. We’ve been monitoring the scans and can already tell which ones are the most popular. So far, the response to Tag has been overwhelmingly positive.”