McKesson, ranked 5 of Fortune 500, delivers medical devices to retail pharmacies and institutional providers like hospitals and health systems throughout North America and Europe. In addition, McKesson delivers a comprehensive offering of healthcare products, technology, equipment and related services to the non-hospital market — including physician offices, surgery centers, long-term care facilities and home healthcare businesses.

THE REQUIREMENT

McKesson required an innovative and interactive map service to clearly and accurately plot locations of their global distribution footprint and shipping lanes. The custom map solution shows their global shipping lanes from Origin to the US and Europe for their business units Cypress, NorthStar and McKesson Europe.

This map offers immediate clarity and accurately portrays their international locations and the interactive map can quickly adapt to cater for route changes as required. The complete solution needed to be simple to use and allow for immediate updates as required.

THE SOLUTION

By listening to their needs and requirements, Oxford Cartographers provided an interactive map that McKesson can effectively show destinations, international routes and plot the various shipping lanes for each business unit.

As part of the requirement, it was essential that a colour palate for individual branding and business sectors was built into the interactive map solution so routes for each business could be clearly shown and separated in layers as required, demonstrating each business unit at any one time. Incorporating individual branding provides a simple visual interface for the users and clearly illustrates the scale of the McKesson operation.

As well as the interactive map solution McKesson, our consultants also provided the custom map solution required for printed media for display purposes and also a version that could be used with Powerpoint for corporate demonstrations.

What we did

The maps needed to fit to a large area at specific measurements, taking into account features on the wall such as air vents. Selecting our own London base map, two areas were extracted and “life-like” sample maps to scale were sent to the customer to ensure they would be fit for purpose.

The maps were then enhanced with features such as road names, Borough names and boundaries, Crossrail & Thameslink locations, postcode information and building shapes, all as required by the customer.

The design of the maps then focused on a colour scheme that matched with Farebrother’s reception area to ensure continuity and effective brand awareness.

We provided proofs for checking, and tweaked the design as required.

The Result

“We were looking for maps that didn’t look cluttered, but highlighted key features in our two core areas of expertise in Central London – Midtown and with our joint venture company Union Street Partners, the South Bank. Our aim was to have artwork for our boardroom and meeting room walls to provide a feature within the rooms, and also to be used as a practical and accurate tool for business meetings. We are very pleased with the result that Oxford Cartographers have created for us.”
Lizzie Cave
Marketing Manager

In addition to text, photographs and plans, this design-led brochure needed to include accurate mapping, whilst retaining the WallQuest look and feel.

Existing maps tended towards the functional, and also included layers of information not key to the customer’s message, so r//evolution marketing approached Oxford Cartographers for help with the mapping.

WHAT WE DID

Our specialist knowledge of data sources allowed us to recommend a method to achieve detailed mapping without incurring prohibitive royalty payments.

Using WallQuest’s brand guidelines, and r//evolution marketing’s brochure draft as a starting point, we designed a set of line and point symbols and a colour palette for the mapping, both for an Overview Map to show the full Heddon-on-the-Wall and Wallsend route, and a more detailed Walk Map of the sections of the route.

We only included on the map detail relating to location and way-finding, and deleted any extraneous information not relevant to the project. This provided a clearer image which shows the route more effectively to the user.

We provided proofs for checking, and tweaked the design to improve clarity.

Since we also considered the future use of the data, we constructed the detailed mapping in one piece, with a template for cutting the separate parts of the route. This meant that in future the location maps could be used for display, print or online in one seamless piece.

We ensured that the data we supplied fitted with r//evolution marketing’s systems so the maps could be easily dropped into the brochure artwork.

THE RESULT

r//evolution received new customised maps which directly related to the design of their WallQuest brochure. The improved clarity of the images helped walkers identify and follow the Hadrian’s Wall walking route.

Oxford Cartographers’ Business Development Manager Lynne Broda knows that customers seldom use just one shipping company, especially when it comes to air freight.

“For shipping companies and handlers, there is a real and constant need to educate existing and potential customers on your breadth of services to maximise throughput…

It’s important to let customers know the countries and regions you serve and to do this with a promotional map, highlighting shipping routes, main destinations and facilities is a simple and effective way to remind customers of this.”

World-class Oman container trans-shipment hub Port of Salalah recognised the importance of clear, customised regional and global mapping to underpin its strategic position to both its staff and client base. The maps produced for the Port of Salalah have certainly borne out the theory.

World Customised Map

Regional Map