Gitterdone opened its beta, and the sign-ups filled up
Buena’s project manager turns the work week into a game you can win. Five months and 774 commits after the first line of code, the beta opened, and filled.
Lydian Dental sums up its purpose in three words: We deliver smiles. This fall the mobile dental startup asked Buena to take that line further than any clinic chair could reach.
A dentist that comes to you
Lydian runs mobile dental clinics in Austin and Phoenix. It also gives 1% of its revenue to good causes. That is a rare promise for a young company, and almost nobody knew it was being kept.
The brief was to change that. Lydian wanted its giving to be seen, and to work as hard for the business as it did for the causes.
Win press
Earn coverage in Austin and Phoenix, the two cities Lydian serves.
Bring in patients
Give new patients in both cities a reason to choose Lydian.
Make people proud
Give employees and patients something to be proud to be part of.
Start with the purpose, not the ad
We started with a social good strategy and a creative brief, written in late 2018. The question was what a dental company that delivers smiles could do outside the clinic that only it could do.
The rounds of ideas that followed ran from A Tooth for a Tooth to Toothpaste for Good. The one that fit the purpose best was the one that took the line literally.
The internet can suck the smile right off your face.
Where it went: the Smile Delivery Network
That idea became the Smile Delivery Network, an app that finds people tweeting their sadness with a :( and alerts a network of do-gooders. Members reply with encouragement, donate to the cause behind the tweet or show up to help in person, and every encouraging reply triggers a Lydian donation toward care for people who can’t afford it.
Buena designed the app, its illustrations and style guide, user-tested a prototype and built it with developer Synergetx. A follow-up was planned too: #LydianSmileHour, an attempt at the most smile emojis ever tweeted in one hour.
Lydian Dental and Buena
Late 2018
The strategy
A social good strategy and creative brief built on three words: We deliver smiles.
Late 2018–2019
The ideas
Rounds of concepts lead to the Smile Delivery Network.
July 2019
Launch to staff
The app launches to Lydian’s own team first.
It all starts from a line Lydian already had. Our job was to make it true a long way from the dentist’s chair.
