The twenty year project
The twenty year project
It’s been twenty years since Cameco’s first corporate website launched. Five iterations later, the digital strategy fueling one of the world’s largest uranium producers has evolved alongside the industry it services. Over the years we’ve adapted to Cameco’s changing needs and navigated the rapidly moving world of technology and user expectations. We’ve managed to do this, all while maintaining industry leadership in corporate communications and community engagement.
Websites in 1997 were digital brochures. As access to the internet expanded, digital forms of communication played a major role in the corporate toolkit, moving away from fax machines to RSS and email alerts for public disclosures. As Cameco’s digital arm, our designers and developers custom programmed updates as needed. Then our proprietary content management system, EasyUpdater, offered Cameco the ability to control features and make updates on their own. But even EasyUpdater fell victim to the lightning pace of digital innovation. By 2013, open source frameworks had evolved beyond our in-house CMS. So on the fifth iteration of Cameco’s corporate website, the playbook was thrown out and we took a fresh approach.
Choose the right tools for the job
Corporate communications must service a broad set of stakeholders, both internally and externally. Previous versions of Cameco’s website won awards for corporate disclosure and Investor Relations. But the strength of digital tools are in their abilities to tell stories, offer two-way communication and aggregate various forms of content and data to meet users where they are.
The fifth iteration of Cameco’s corporate website needed to be mobile optimized, integrate social tools, break down complex aspects of the uranium industry into bite sized facts and figures through data visualization and infographics, and highlight the strong work of Cameco’s people and the communities they operate in.
...success has been achieved for over 20 years because of Cameco's commitment to leveraging digital tools...
Strategy for continued adaptation
The strategy needed to evolve so that in-house administrators could control every piece of content, automate certain areas to avoid duplication of effort and weave a narrative of Cameco’s superior sustainability and community engagement efforts throughout its multiple digital assets. And it has, as a digital style guide offered a foundation for Cameco’s corporate website and four community websites. The integration of Cameco’s social channels highlight news and events in each of its operating communities. And our structured approach to support and optimization protects each of its assets from security risks, software updates and new devices shaping online behaviours.
Cameco has been achieving success online for over 20 years. It started with the decision to leverage digital platforms to tell its story back in 1997. And success continues today with the company’s commitment to a dependable support and optimization framework. Cameco’s digital adaptation will advance and evolve alongside both the uranium industry and the global digital transformation shaping our lives.
Our long-term relationship with zu has been a constant in the digital space of steady change. I'm very proud of our longevity and what we've achieved together.
Cameco has proven to be our model client-partner. Always ready to explore what is possible and adopt emergent technology in their quest to be an industry leader. For over 20 years they have been committed to offering superior experiences to all those who engage them digitally.