ABOUT

ELSE collaborated with Daljit Singh, Michael Wolff and NB Studio on the inception and creation of a new Russian banking service aimed at entrepreneurs and small business owners.

With over 1,000 banks servicing SME’s in Russia (compared to about five in the UK), competition is fierce, yet customer service and customer satisfaction levels are very low.

Zhuck was specifically created to cater to entrepreneurs, accountants, managers and investors, who want closer control of their business – a better understanding of the day-to-day goings on – without getting caught up in (or slowed down by) the bureaucratic Russian banking system.

After a series of customer interviews, workshops and creative sessions in London, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, a core idea developed that Zhuck should embody the idea of a ‘business companion’, teaching entrepreneurs new habits and revealing tricks, to maximise the health of their business, one step at a time.

But this is a different sort of companion. Zhuck develops an ‘artificial intelligence’ and uses the entrepreneurs’ financial information to provide a realtime health check on the business.

Over time, it helps businesses manage their profit & loss, model forecasts, budgets, and monitor partners and suppliers. In the palm of their hand, business owners can see where they are, where they’ve been and where they are going. Zhuck picks them up when they let things get a bit slack, and it compliments them when things are done in a timely way.

From the very start, this product was seen as a ‘companion’ and once the rationale behind the name and personality was established, NB began exploring the look and feel of the charismatic companion, eventually settling on Ryan Todd’s humorous graphic illustration style. Writer Nick Asbury helped fine-tune language and invent new phrases, which were then translated into Russian by Ekaterina Solomeina.

This innovative new app led to us winning a D&AD award for Branding/Digital Brand Expression.