How to "make it pop", Introducing a tool to receive more effective client feedback on strategy and design in a creative agency

How to "make it pop", Introducing a tool to receive more effective client feedback on strategy and design in a creative agency

Jansen, Bram (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)

Hultink, H.J. (mentor)
Cankurtaran, P. (graduation committee)
van der Zwaard, Gerben (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Strategic Product Design

2023-04-20

Imagine you show something that you made to a client, and all they give you is the following feedback:

“Just make it pop!”

So.. what do you do with this? Nobody really knows.. and it may surprise you, but this is not a made-up example. This is existing feedback from real clients.

The main focus of this project, therefore, lies in improving this kind of client feedback. In particular, feedback in a brand identity creation process.

A brand identity is a unique and recognisable set of associations about a company that sets you apart from the competition. It is a complex combination of elements and needs a structured creation process. The result needs to resonate with its customers, differentiate the brand from competitors, and at the same time, represent what an organisation can and will do over time. To make sure all these different elements are appropriately incorporated, good communication between a client and an agency is essential.

The agency involved in this project is Dentsu Creative Amsterdam. Within DCA, communication concerning creating brand identities is established through the client providing feedback on the presented work. However, to understand what the client means, this communication needs to be very clear, which, as demonstrated above, is currently not the case.

Therefore, this graduation project aims to create an approach that makes the feedback given on the brand identity creation process more effective. This should result in a more structured and efficient feedback process, saving time while ensuring the same quality of work and preventing any unneeded frustrations between the client and the agency.

The final design is a tool that educates the client on effective feedback and guides them through the whole feedback process. The structure of the form is dependent on the decisions made by the client as they get different follow-up questions based on the feedback they give. After validation with a real client, it is concluded that the use of this tool leads to more effective client feedback in the brand identity creation process.

feedback
tool development
Brand identity
Brand Strategy

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:d558fcc0-5bca-4895-8e62-0cc908ac5e09

Student theses

master thesis

© 2023 Bram Jansen