FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, 12 February 2007, London, UK. VYRE Ltd, the global provider of content management software solutions, is pleased to announce that its client Icelandair won Best Website Design Of The Year at the annual Technology For Marketing (TFM) Awards on 6 February 2007.

Icelandair and VYRE beat competition from runner-ups including Dabs, Odeon and Orange. Ant Cauchi, one of the panel judges said: “The overall design, feel and functionality of the Icelandair site won through. The site enables a great and simple user experience whilst remaining stylish.”

Icelandair chose VYRE’s product Unify in 2005 to redesign and re-launch its global and local websites. Since the sites were launched in the first quarter of 2006 the airline has reported rapid increases in online sales and search engine referrals:

Increased sales:

• 16% increase in total visitors (2006 vs. 2005)
• 15% increase in web sales (2006 vs. 2005)
• 38.7% increase in sales per visitor (2006 vs. 2005)
• 3.5% increase in visitor conversion rate (2006 vs. 2005)

• 40% to 50% increase in main page views (between July 2005 and July 2006)
• Increase from 90% to over 500% in referrals from Google for selected phrases since launch
• An average of 60% increase in referrals from local Google Search Engines (September 2006 vs. September 2005)

 
“Our new look site is easy to use and provides our customers with all they need to research, plan and book their trip. This award demonstrates our commitment to providing a full service to our customers, and is a success we wish to build on with more innovations and developments in the near future” said Gunnar Már Sigurfinnsson, SVP Sales and Marketing Icelandair.

Using VYRE Unify the new Icelandair websites were redesigned from the ground up bringing the company's Internet presence into the realm of ‘Web 2.0’, a second-generation of Internet-based services. The sites are based on established technologies such as AJAX, XML, CSS 2.0, and XSL, which are all supported by VYRE Unify. In short Icelandair has taken a bold leap into the future and the resulting product is a website that is powerful, lean and robust.

Mr. Hjörtur Þorgilsson, Senior Vice President of Information Technology at Icelandair, explains: “VYRE Unify is a very powerful web system that enables us to take the next steps, and design even more powerful web solutions in the future. We put a lot of effort into finding a system that would fulfil all of our expectations and requirements. It has been proven that VYRE Unify was the right choice as the system leads to great opportunities that will make all future work at Icelandair much easier.”

About Icelandair and its web strategy

Icleandair is an international airline and the largest operating unit of Icelandair group. When the airline selected VYRE Unify for the redesign of its websites, its aim was to gain competitive advantage by increasing services to customers and sales on the websites. Technically Icelandair wanted to improve the architecture of the websites to increase uptime, improve the booking process, as well as to provide better access to services for employees and customers.

Jon Karl Olafsson, CEO Icelandair said: “The TFM award is a great achievement for Icelandair and we’re extremely proud of our accomplishment. The online channel is the backbone of our sales efforts and it’s important that we do an excellent job in that area.”
The TFM award is only the latest in a string of recent awards for the Icelandair websites. In 2006, Icelandair was voted Marketing Company of the Year in the Icelandic Marketing Awards. Just recently the Icelandair website was also voted Best Icelandic Website in 2006 and claiming the award for Best Company Website during the annual Icelandic Web Awards.

About VYRE Ltd

VYRE Ltd is a global provider of content management software solutions. The solutions delivered by VYRE provide fast implementation and unrivalled flexibility in deployment, enabling clients to innovate and react quickly to change.

VYRE’s flagship product Unify, offers an unified framework that encompasses the needs of any dynamic content driven website or web based application including: public websites, digital asset and brand asset management sites, portals, collaboration, intranets and extranets, approvals and compliance sites and document management solutions. The technology manages and delivers an extensive range of structured and unstructured content including documents, video, audio, web pages, print ready artwork and images.

Unify technology is open standards based, service orientated and platform and database independent, integrating seamlessly with existing infrastructures. Enterprise class, the technology scales to support the needs of multiple sites across an enterprise. Designed for ease of use, Unify offers maximum autonomy to content managers, power users and administrators alike.

VYRE clients include Diageo PLC, ITV/Granada, The International Management Group, Lowe & Partners Worldwide, Grey Worldwide, The Association of Accounting Technicians, The Icelandair Group, Car Design News, i-level, The Canadian Armed Forces, Cobweb Information, Sound on Sound and Queens University Belfast.

Contact and case study information

Conny Lutz
Marketing Executive
Direct Line: +44 (0)7917 432 986
conny@vyre.com

VYRE Ltd
Zetland House
5-25 Scrutton Street
London, EC2A 4HJ