I stumbled across this short essay/post/article/speech from Steven Michael Marx Shaw. Actually, I have no clue what it is – but it makes great points.
The argument is presented in the first line:“Clients who value your designs are good. Clients who also value your design process are better.”
The author, at the end, outlines why this is true:
“1) Clients who understand and value your design process are more likely to respect the time and effort that goes into creating effective design solutions. Your design process should be shaped around getting the best results. Most every client would agree that they deserve no less.All this brings me to a current issue in my world: Value propositions. What are our agency/firms selling? What is the economic benefit of it? What is the marketing benefit of it?
“2) A valued design process establishes a platform through which clients and designers can forge real working relationships. No design process should exclude client participation. Your design process is your chance to define and manage how such a relationship works, on mutually constructive terms aimed at meeting expectations. More importantly, when a client is allowed to participate at key points along the journey, they feel a sense of ownership early on.
“3) When clients believe in your design process, they are far more likely to believe in your creative product - the design. They know that good design does not just happen in a moment of inspiration, but that there is a well-informed rationale behind the creative decisions. The resulting design makes sense to them and it is not just a pretty picture competing with lots of other pretty pictures.”
Let’s compare two values propositions: IDEO vs JWT.
“IDEO helps organizations innovate through design. Independently ranked by global business leaders as one of the world's most innovative companies, we use design thinking to help clients navigate the speed, complexity, and opportunity areas of today's world.”
“[JWT] creates ideas for our clients that people want to spend time with.”*Clearly, a process-focused proposition versus a product-focused one. Clearly a compelling proposition versus a so-what? proposition. And I don’t think I have to call out who is the more affective, admired and successful creative firm, do I?
I’m sure there is a lot more to say about this split in value propositions, so please share some of your thoughts. It’s just a topic I’ve never had to give much thought to since I’ve never had to start a new company (until now). But it’s a remarkably important topic I don’t hear a whole lot of people discussing.
*In all fairness to JWT, I don’t know if this is truly their proposition. It was simply the closest thing I could find on their site to one.
5 comments:
Very interesting post. I'm going to follow up with some thoughts of my own on my site shortly.
I've worked at agencies with very clear propositions that still sold products (even though they thought they sold process) and I've worked at agencies who seemed like they sold product but were really selling process.
I think the challenge lies in how clients process information and view how you're adding value. I've seen some agencies become so focused on selling their own process that they ignore the extent to which the information and differentiation that they're trying to sell is being ignored or not processed by the person they're pitching to.
In other words even if your process is what differentiates you, sometimes your client just doesn't care.
Sometimes it's all that matters.
I think its really tough to pull these apart. IDEO is a product development firm, creating new to the world properties. JWT is an advertising firm whose job it is is to create compelling communications that ultimately create sales for their companies.
Process will always be a more important sell-in when creating something from nothing. Guiding the client from thought to realization and eventually to market is not only essential, but prioritized because you are selling visions and prescriptions for the future.
Communications on the other hand, tend to be more successful when you not only have a good product, but a brilliant mode of engagement. Still the success relies on consumers adopting a product and ultimately adapting their behavior to incorporate that product. So it makes sense for communications firms to put their money in conveying product attributes or the end-user benefits.
As leemaicon mentioned, it really comes down to how the client values your input. Does it lie in the step-by-step or are they ok if you say presto and pull the rabbit from the hat? I think good clients always appreciate and value the process, but sometimes just making the most of a good product can make you a winner too.
The key is really making the client buy in to whatever is right for the scenario or what you do best; adding value which they can apply directly to their business, or great ideas which inspire and drive.
Ultimately the client probably values the output the most, and however you reach it is up to you. Just tell them when and where their money is going.
I also think companies have a vested interest to be somewhat guarded since our beliefs and perspectives drive our individual business. I don't know many other industries built on such ambiguities.
Thanks for the thoughts y'all.
In my experience, I’ve found that clients who want the “Pull a rabbit from a hat” approach tend to:
1) Be prescriptive in their requests.
2) Not care about innovative work.
Plus, to me, it’s a big red flag if the client doesn’t want to be a part of the process. Separating the client from the process greatly increases the chance the agency will get it wrong in the final presentation – actually, ensures it. Of course, this leads to frustration, more work and compressed timelines.
IMHO, selling your process recruits clients that want to be involved.
Also, in response to your comment:
“I think it’s really tough to pull these apart. IDEO is a product development firm, creating new to the world properties. JWT is an advertising firm whose job it is to create compelling communications that ultimately create sales for their companies.”
In abstract terms, aren’t IDEO and JWT both making things that previously didn’t exist in the world? Also, aren’t the artifacts they create designed to do roughly the same thing: change behaviors?
But I'm digressing into abstractness...
Yes. I agree, the client ultimately wants something made for them. No doubt. But the process, I believe, gives integrity to your final product and the claims about your product.
For example:
I could say that my company will swoop into your company, lock ourselves into one of your conference rooms for a week, and a emerge with a solution that will reinvent your communications platform and reinvigorate your company's moral. But that wouldn't sound like the most credible path to that goal.
On the other hand I could say that my company will, over the course of 4 months, run 5 intensely collaborative discovery and ideation sessions with your company employees and leaders. These will be followed by ethnographies of your core customer. Subsequently we will run a creative workshop to develop in tandem with our client team the strategic platform for the company from which our creative teams will blow out 3 separate but emotionally charged campaigns that will reinvent your communications platform and reinvigorate your company's moral. This sounds more credible.
I guess, at the end of the day, every agency is offering to innovate, reinvent, revitalize and make famous the companies who hire them. If everyone is promising that, then the only way to be seen as credible and capable is to have a compelling process that stands out from everyone else's.
Its beyond scary if clients dont question or want to know how the process goes. I totally agree this usually ends in frustration or wasted work.
I totally agree both IDEO and JWT are creating new-to-the-world content, but i think the engagement is quite different between the two. My perspective, quite biased since i deal in innovation and product development, is that consumer engagement is reliant on the product. Advertising doesn't really impact how they engage or value a product. That comes back to the product's intended usage, traits, design, etc. I think advertising can make you aware of something, or spur you to purchase it, but it wont change the value of the product or make you happier with your soda purchase.
You are correct that potentially both can change behavior, but its a bit of a vacuum situation. So I put more more value on the product created by ideo since it can potentially create the consumer's behavior within a category. When i think of advertising inspiring change, Bad PSAs like DARE keep running through my head.... really thats an extreme example, but its late in the day.
Really interesting thread on process. Keep it up!
I've only worked in an agency that sells the process and reassures the client that the product will be unique if they are part of this process.
The problem with the process approach is that if the process is rigid and does not allow the freedom to be adaptive to different problems, then it isn't the most effective.
This then means that process adaptiveness is key to solving diverse business problems. I think you have a clue in your next post "Process vs Spaces".
Once a model for a successful process is in place, the end product will naturally tell its own intended story.
Very interesting discussion on the benefits of the each approach.
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