Simian, the industry-leading production asset management service used by advertisers, agencies, production houses, post studios and music providers, has unveiled a significant upgrade to its microsite-building capabilities. The upgrade, part of Simian’s ongoing series of Simian 5 improvements, will provide users with a quick, efficient and friction-free way to create branded sites that can be used to present new work to clients, pitch production or post talent for jobs, provide an easy way to build and share directors’ treatments and showcase new ideas, production elements or any other visual content. 

This feature allows users to create microsites with a distinct URL in minutes, utilizing a variety of template, design and text placement options, explains Simian’s Chief Technology Officer, Jay Brooks. To learn more about the feature, go here.

"Our user base taps Microsites for everything from pitches to pre-pro books, location scouting, review & approval, projects, partner presentations, you name it,” says Brooks. “Some even use them for their main company web sites. What’s great about this feature is that it gives them instant access to everything within Simian including reels which makes building really attractive sites a breeze.”  

The new Microsite feature has added more functionality and allows users to create multi-page sites with different layouts for each page, so they can highlight specific aspects of their presentations in greater detail. Options include video backgrounds, multiple gallery styles for video and images and easy attachment of showreels and specific spots.  

Users can choose from three templates for presenting content:  

• FU-SION is a modern template that’s video, image and reel centric, featuring multiple page layouts and design options. It works well for company pages or pages dedicated to specific projects, spots or campaigns.
• ‘RE-FRAC-TION’ is a parallax-style, scrolling layout that displays images, video and text in full browser width. It works well for presenting work, video and text in a modern, continuously flowing style.
• ‘CAT-A-LYST’ is a versatile, easy-to-use slide-show generator which lends itself to creating directors’ treatments, pitch decks or other presentations that can highlight your creative ideas and visions.

In addition, the new Simian Microsites features allow users to upload video backgrounds for these layouts and populate their media choices by inserting showreels from their Reel Libraries. They can choose from multiple gallery layouts, too, with various mouseover styles for thumbnails. There’s an enhanced font selection process and an upgraded WYSIWYG editor, which make for improved content management. And the overall responsiveness has been boosted, to ensure that microsites look great across all platforms and devices.

“These layout options are designed for people who need to get something produced quickly and efficiently and don’t have a lot of time in which to do it,” says Brooks. “They let you do a lot, without a whole lot of effort.”

“The feedback we’ve gotten from our users has been really encouraging,” adds Brian Atton, Simian’s Chief Operating Officer. “It’s totally in step with our mission here, which is to help creative companies work smarter and more efficiently, so they can focus on what they do best, which is being creative. And with video sharing and collaboration at the heart of what Simian offers, this new feature fits squarely in that wheelhouse.”

The new function works across all kinds of devices, platforms and screen dimensions, and is fully responsive. Best of all, notes Atton, it’s built into a user’s existing Simian account, and can be utilized on an on-demand basis as needed, without incurring additional expense.

To demo the new microsite function, or to schedule an overall Simian demo and launch a free trial, contact Head of Sales Kellie Atton via email.