The evolution of brand management leads to an understanding of brands as dynamic, co-created entities that express purpose and identity. With this emerging understanding, the role of employees in building and delivering a brand is increasingly recognised and exploited. Through internal branding efforts, companies can aim to improve the alignment of their employees with their brand, by making sure employees (1) understand the brand, (2) identify with the brand and (3) commit to the brand to eventually be able to (4) behave in line with the brand. This thesis aims to examine and improve the internal brand alignment at creative tech company WeTransfer, to eventually make for more fulfilled and connected employees, who can better deliver the brand promise to make for content and loyal customers. To understand the context, a study consisting of corporate ethnography, qualitative interviews and existing data analysis was conducted. The findings from the research illustrate that the rapid growth of WeTransfer has a considerable impact on its internal brand and culture. On the one hand, there is a need for guidance of employees, to make sure their understanding of the brand does not fragment further. On the other hand, it is found that the freedom and autonomy of employees should be preserved. Thus, the challenge is to find a balance in guiding employees to contribute to the brand, while retaining their freedom. To address this challenge, a strategy is developed based on concepts from literature, to (1) make the WeTransfer brand clear by concretising it internally and (2) make the brand live by facilitating an internal conversation. To illustrate how this strategy can be executed, a two-component design is proposed. Firstly, a WeTransfer manifesto is co-created with employees, aiming to translate the abstract brand values and purpose into concrete behaviour on the work floor. Secondly, the Living the brand program is developed to activate the manifesto and initiate discussion on the matter. The program is led by a team of brand ambassadors and engages all employees in several activities to learn about and reflect on the manifesto. In this time of rapid growth, the design proposal has the potential to make explicit what aspects define WeTransfer and should be held on to. It helps the company strengthen those aspects and get all employees pulling in the same direction. Executing the advised strategy - making the brand clear and making it live - has the potential to contribute to the authenticity of WeTransfer’s brand. Employees will be more strongly connected to the brand and be able to deliver the brand promise. That not only makes employees remain at their jobs but also improves customer satisfaction and loyalty.

This graduation project is carried out for PostNL's XL parcel delivery. PostNL is one of the biggest delivery companies in the Netherlands and one of their departments takes care of XL parcel delivery. This department is called Extra@Home. XL parcels can be seen as non-regular parcels, meaning odd sizes or weights. For Extra@Home, the XL parcel delivery comes with a delivery, installation and assemblage service. Products varying from wardrobes to washing machines can be delivered, assembled and installed in the customer's house. Extra@Home proposed a graduation internship to analyse the current customer journey to search for possible service optimisations. Context analysis and literature research outline the graduation project's context. The customer journey was composed with literature review and user research insights. User research was conducted by interviewing expert, experiencing a service delivery, interviewing Extra@Home's customers and experiencing the communication. From the customer journey negative and positive customer experiences were derived. Negative customer experiences were evaluated with the SERVQUAL model. The SERVQUAL model provided two different design directions: Extra@Home can be more customer-oriented and services of Extra@Home can be more user-centred. Several factors led to the decision to continue with the last direction. This direction was the start of the designing process, with the outcome of Mechanics@Home (Figure 1). It is a service designed for Extra@Home that improves the current service. It is a user-centred service, that emphasises the core values and strengths of PostNL. Customers and mechanics of Extra@Home are put at the centre of the service. The service is a personal approach to the current service. The customer gets the opportunity to get to know the mechanic before they come to their house to deliver and install a product. The customer also receives personal communication from the mechanic with updates about their delivery. An integration with the current PostNL app makes sure that customers have a positive experience when encountering the service of Extra@Home. Instead of a lot of different communication channels, everything can be handled in the PostNL app. Transparant communication about what happens in the service journey is essential. From the mechanic's point of view, the service highlights the skilled mechanics, which will create a feeling of responsibility from the mechanics. This feeling of responsibility exists, because the customer knows them., because they are responsible for their service delivery and they are known by the customer. A service blueprint outlines the service of Mechanics@Home with front- and backstage actions. For a direct implementation a service roadmap was created. This roadmap has a three-step implementation strategy and it works towards the vision of integrating Mechanics@Home completely in the PostNL app and in Extra@Home. Finally, Mechanics@Home was validated with all the important stakeholders in this project: customers, Extra@Home, mechanics and the marketing team.

This report is the result of a self-initiated design graduation project that regarded positive design in a strategic design context. The goal of the project was to design and develop a tool or method that integrates positive design knowledge into strategic design processes. To get to the bottom of this, desk research and user research into the domains of strategic and positive design were conducted. Research presented opportunities to apply happiness interventions on multiple strategic levels of a product-service system. These opportunities were developed into an overview, the positive strategic design (PSD) framework. Research also presented several strategically viable implications to communicate the happiness interventions. The chosen strategy was one that was directed at design students. The students are the bridge between theory and practice and can potentially improve engagement with positive design in both areas. The strategy was to create a solution that included principles from both strategic design and positive design and incorporated the PSD framework. The final design included a tool in the form of website and a printable card set and were developed to give users the same value independent of the format that they use. Moreover, people can download the card set through the website, making it easier to use and discuss the happiness interventions in a group. The website can be accessed via https://positivestrategicdesign.com

Customer experience (CX) is becoming increasingly important for companies in the financial sector. Digital engagement accelerated due to the pandemic, resulting in a higher demand for optimized digital customer experiences and user-friendly IT systems. Companies in the financial sector have to keep up with the digital transformation and bring their CX to the next level. This project is done in collaboration with the Technology Transformation (TT) team of Ernst & Young (EY) which navigates its clients through transformations. The team implements the backend of new IT systems for their clients and therefore focuses on the business and technical side of these systems. TT works from a viability and a feasibility point-of-view, overlooking the desirability. The desirability of products and services is important because a negative customer experience leads to customers leaving their service-providing companies. Therefore, it’s becoming increasingly important for TT to pay more attention to the CX of the IT systems they implement. For TT to be able to provide its clients with viable, feasible, and desirable IT systems, this research investigates how TT’s service offering can be enhanced by developing new capabilities. In this thesis, the first step towards a future where CX is incorporated into TT’s projects will be created. The ultimate reason for conducting this thesis is to add to the team's growing body of knowledge about CX and offer the team useful insights and suggestions on how to enhance CX in their future projects and provide more value to their clients. The findings of this thesis might also be applicable to other groups and companies trying to improve their CX and gain a competitive edge in today's customer-driven market. The research phase finds accessibility, communicability, and traceability as key factors in contributing to the desirability of IT, and convenience, usability, security, trust, and personalization as key drivers in the financial sector for enhancing CX. By involving a collaborative design approach with co-creation sessions with fellow SPD students and design consultants from VODW, ideas were generated, and concepts were created. The final concept for TT is The CX Innovator’s Guide. The CX Guide serves as a starting point for TT to develop and enhance its CX capabilities and work towards delivering more desirable solutions. The Guide is a tool for the team to get acquainted with the new topic, learn about current CX developments in the market, and how they can include CX in their projects.

Company X is a renowned engineering and technology corporation based in Germany that has established a prominent presence in China for over a century. Company X is actively promoting and leading the way in adopting environmentally friendly technological projects in response to the green energy trend worldwide. A significant step in this direction is introducing their new air-sourced heat pump product line in their Chinese HVAC department, specifically designed to cater to the unique requirements of the local environment and market. This study aims to assist Company X in its transition towards green technology by developing a strategic plan for introducing its new product in the Chinese market. Upon joining Company X, the author assumed the role of an external observer and started the research by reviewing internal documents to understand the company’s current situation and the product itself. The author concludes that a go-to-market strategy is an essential bridge for its product launch since it can help to meet the company’s transitioning from product-driven to emphasising meeting market demands and enhancing user experience. Since this study focuses on developing a go-to-market plan for Company X, highlighting the product’s unique selling point is critical to differentiate from intense market competition. To achieve this goal, the author conducted thorough market and consumer research, which involved studying existing literature, conducting field studies, and gathering feedback through surveys and interviews. From the gathered data, a strategic product launch roadmap was created for Company X. This roadmap offers advice on highlighting features that make the company's heat pump different from others and on effective launch strategies. A key observation was the varied nature of the Chinese market and the specific demands of its consumers. Since user needs and preferences differ from region to region, it is crucial to adapt strategies and, when needed, test them with local partners before a widespread rollout. Interestingly, the research also showed that many consumers are not fully aware of the ASHP product, signalling opportunities for educational initiatives. For Company X to truly resonate with its audience, it is essential to reimagine its brand image, emphasising sustainability and user experience. The ultimate objective is for Company X's new product to resonate with its target audience and capture a significant portion of the ASHP market share.

Whello is a full-service digital marketing agency based in Amsterdam and Indonesia, offering branding, web development and campaigning services. They have grown a lot the last few years since their establishment in 2018. However, this growth is not reflected through their current branding. This, combined with their desire to take the next step by entering the international market, led them to the idea of a rebrand. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to develop and implement a new and improved brand image for Whello that better reflects their growth and positions them as a professional and experienced player in the international digital marketing industry. The project was performed in 3 overlapping phases to ensure an iterative process based on design thinking; the research phase, the ideation phase, and the implementation phase, to conceptualize, perform, and substantialize the rebranding of Whello. First, to start off the research phase, literature research was conducted into rebranding, international branding, and business-to-business branding. The main insights gained from this, were that the new branding should not leave too much of what worked and is appreciated behind and should be based on a universally accepted idea that is continuously adaptable to nuances. Lastly, the rebranding should be used to bridge the gap of uncertainty by showing Whello’s experience and expertise, and thereby increasing the purchase confidence. Second, the 5C analysis concluded the research phase. Key findings were that Whello's main strengths lie in their 3-step full service approach, together with their distinctive empathic approach with an emphasis on co-creation, communication, and synergy between their specialists. Another clear distinction was the friendly approach of Whello. Lastly, it was found that Whello sees a lot of depth in growth in terms of balancing growth for themselves, their customers, their employees, and the planet. Then, the key findings, together with findings from a workshop with employees, were turned into a new brand identity through the ideation phase. This consisted of three sections; the identity, the brand, and the evidence, together setting a foundation for the implementation phase (Figure 1). From this Whello’s new brand identity was made to be empathic, cheerful, structured, and inspirational to show their strengths, growth and future vision. Next, to help Whello with the implementation of their new brand identity, a Brand Guide was created and evaluated. This showed how the brand is translated visually and tonally, through a new logo design, colour palette, typography, key visuals, visual elements, tone of voice, and three brand touchpoint examples (one example can be seen in Figure 2). These examples were then also evaluated on whether they reflected the intended brand identity. This showed that most of the intended elements served their purpose, but that they should be used together, and that sustainability was not well recognized in the design. Finally, the results of this thesis were evaluated on feasibility, desirability, and viability, after which limitations, implications, and recommendations were discussed and the thesis is concluded. Key takeaways were that the new direction can be used by changing the communication, but the implementation should be evaluated further to get more insights into which elements and configurations work best.

Our world is changing rapidly in various ways, forcing organizations to engage in continuous change to stay relevant. Therefore, it has become an essential capability of organizations to engage in and attempt to manage change to remain successful and sustain their existence (Stouten, Rousseau & de Cremer, 2018; Coughlan, Suri & Canales, 2007). Due to the increasingly fast-changing market demands, organizations recognize the need for a more outside-in approach in order to increase their resilience. This is why the customer-centric approach gained popularity (Ambaram, 2013). In order to become customer-centric, organizations need to enhance their customers’ experiences. As service design offers the means to improve customer experience, service design has become a capability that many organizations attempt to acquire (Ostrom et al., 2015).Initial assignmentA few years ago, Koos developed their service design maturity model: a model that describes different growth phases an organization can go through while trying to embed service design within their organizations, and the elements that affect this process. In order to realize the ambition of becoming a more strategic partner that guides organizations through customer-centric transformations, Koos feels having a solid maturity model could serve as a backbone. The expectation was that the model could both serve in order to predict in what way an organization should change, but also to “sell“ the transformation proposition. Therefore, the main objective of this thesis assignment was to validate and improve Koos’ maturity model, and identify how the model could be servitized by Koos. Reframed assignmentHowever, initial exploration through interviews with experts and Koos’ designers, combined with findings from literature, pointed out that the key stakeholders may have made the assumption that a maturity scan is what they need in order to concretize their transformation offer. However, Koos’ service designers and interviewed experts pointed out a more fundamental problem: the feeling that Koos might be missing skills that are essential in order to be able to help organizations transform. On top of that, literature research made clear that creating maturity models that accurately indicate how an organization might need to transform, or indicating how “mature“ an organization is, is impossible since every organization is different and requires a unique approach. Therefore, the new problem statement, formulated as a question, became:What does Koos need to do differently in order to enable organizations to become more customer-centric through service design, in order to form a more strategic, long-term collaboration with clients?Opportunity gapto focus more on exploring the organizational context elements to understand clients’ as-is situation, instead of trying to assess the context elements to indicate a maturity level. In that way, they can secure better implementation and thus enable clients to become slightly more customer-centric project by project. This will help Koos to concretize their transformation proposition in three ways:First, exploring the as-is state of the organizational context will enable Koos to improve chances of implementation, and thus make a more transformative impact. Secondly, having the as-is state made explicit will also enable Koos to express the transformative impact of service design to clients after a project has been implemented. Thirdly, more experience with implementation and organizational change on project scale will give Koos the expertise, the organizational sensitivity and credibility needed to serve as transformation consultants in the future.Organizational context framework and MiroBased on findings from 4 case studies compared with findings from literature and a co-reflection session with 24 of Koos’ employees, it was decided to design a framework that would explain which organizational context elements service designers should take into account in order to secure better implementation, and when and how they should embed exploration of these context elements into their double diamond design approach. This resulted in the Organizational Context Framework as shown in figure 1. The framework shows how designers should adress implementation from day one, by performing 3 different actions regarding the organizational context: exploring, aligning and anchoring. In order to enact the framework, the Organizational Context Reflection Miro has been designer. This Miroboard serves as a living document, in which the design team goes through a weekly reflection of all three organizational context actions. In that way, continuous alignment between the organizational context and the project approach is being stimulated, so that the project outcomes and required changes can be anchored and implemented within the organization succesfully. Change process KoosThe most important outcome of this project is not the organizational context framework or the reflection Miro, but rather the fact that this project set a change process in motion at Koos internally. Through the findings of this project, it has become apparent that Koos’ service designers need to extern their skill set and start approaching their projects in a more impact-minded, flexible manner. The framework and the Miroboard serve as artefacts that stimulate this change, but pointing out the blindspot Koos had, and starting the change process required to solve it is bigger and more important, and should make lasting impact long after this project ended.

Union is one of the oldest Dutch bicycle manufacturers, and is connected to the large conglomerate Pon Holding. They offer simple but stylish bicycles with a focus on the urban area, for the consumer market. Recently they have linked their brand to the Food & Beverages domain, and are keen to collaborate with businesses in this sector.The Dutch electric bicycle market has been growing rapidly in the last decade and is expected to continue to grow over the next decade. Since Union has the ambition to expand their portfolio, a new electric bicycle is a logical next step for them. The emerging trend of the food delivery market has been growing in the Netherlands as well, and an increasing number of food delivery companies are changing their mode of transportation from gasoline vehicles to electric bicycles. Union has realised that this combination of circumstances gives them a potential opportunity to combine the development of a new e-bike with an entrance into the food delivery e-bike market. Creating a product proposition only for the B2B food delivery market will not be profitable, in terms of sales volume, so Union would like to combine the product with its regular consumer sales. Accordingly, the research question for this project is ‘How can Union enter the food delivery e-bike market, with a product and commercial proposition that primarily serves the needs of food delivery companies, and secondly, is suitable for consumers as well?’Analysing the food delivery e-bike market has shown that (the few) competitors currently offer low quality bicycles for a relatively high price, which leaves room for improvements in terms of product, price and service. User research within both target markets has revealed several interesting overlapping problems, needs and desires, which are seen as key focus points. Generating creative ideas, based on these key focus points has resulted in a selection of proposed features and specifications, which are the starting point of the concept design.Ultimately, the design activities have led to the development of the Union DELI, an e-bike designed for food delivery companies. With a simple but robust design, integrated battery and mid-motor, it is optimal for daily intensive use and weight transportation. This in combination with the ‘connected’ e-bike service (a service that lets the client see and use relevant e-bike-data) food delivery companies can ensure an even better experience for their customers. The e-bike can be customised as desired through the use of modular lighting and transportation elements. The integrated lights can be replaced by one or two food boxes. This modular design makes the Union DELI also suitable for regular use. Client branding ensures that the e-bike represents visually the client’s brand. Repair and maintenance and financial services are all included in the lease construction of the DELI. The geometry and design appearance of the e-bike are based on user desires combined with Union’s brand positioning and portfolio. The DELI therefore fits well with the Union brand. Finally, recommendations for further research combined with a roadmap are presented to give an overview of the activities and next steps that should be taken to prepare for the launch of the DELI.

Orange Branding is a Dutch Brand Strategy and Design agency based in Amsterdam and operating in China (Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen) since 2005. They have clients of various sizes in various industries, but in this project, we focused on companies interested in Cross-border e-commerce. When these businesses want to operate abroad, they will need a well-built brand. However, the value of branding has not yet been widely understood in China. Therefore, we ought to design a method to improve this understanding. Furthermore, research has shown that clients and brand designers need to work together to achieve the most optimal result. Accordingly, the research question answered in this thesis reads: How can we improve co-creation in the brand development process between Dutch designers and Chinese clients? To answer the research question, we have analyzed existing branding methods: Cultural Branding, Co-creating Brand Meaning, and OB’s usual methods. Furthermore, we researched Chinese culture in general and, regarding branding, to determine how a European designer should collaborate with a Chinese client. Lastly, we examined different Artificial Intelligence (AI) types to use in a new Branding Method. What makes Cultural Branding unique is its story-based approach. Douglas Holt believes a brand has to offer a story, or myth, to its consumers. Consumers must want to use a brand’s products in order to live that story and build identity. Co-creating Brand meaning tells us that the company behind a brand is the source of inspiration for the Brand Identity. Knowing this, a designer should not exclude the client from the brand development process but involve him in. However, the client must not acquire too much creative freedom, so it is the designer’s job to balance involvement and creation. We argue that AI can provide tools with which a designer can achieve this balance. We conducted a pilot experiment to test the value of AI as a tool in brand development. Since the client inspires the Brand Identity, we wanted to see if we can use Machine Learning (a type of AI) to determine brand personalities. Therefore, we collected approximately 3500 images, labeled with one of Aaker’s Five Dimensions of Brand Personality: Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness. Therefore, we created the Orange Branding ‘Aaker Personality Prediction Algorithm’ or ‘OB-APPA’. APPA is an ML algorithm that was trained using these images and is able to predict the personality of an image. The OB team in China posed as imaginary clients and supplied new images for six fictional brands. Then, with the predictions from APPA, we manifested these predictions into visual brand styles. Next, the OB China team provided feedback on whether the created styles fit their intended fictional brand’s identity. After examining the feedback, we conclude that the use of APPA could be very beneficial for a design agency like OB. OB can benefit from using APPA as their clients often supply a design brief which leaves almost complete creative freedom. APPA could efficiently deduce the desired brand personality, which will narrow the design brief. Consequently, an additional step in APPA could also predict the associated Brand Archetype. Combining the improved APPA with generative branding tools like Tailor Brands, IDEO’s font map, Front brief, and Colour Thief can generate branding elements in a short amount of time and make the system usable from anywhere.

The urgent state of the world, the new wave of critical consumers and a renewed sense of social awareness amongst people is requiring traditional businesses to act on their social responsibility towards society (Echo, 2011). The uprise of social enterprises proves that businesses can do both (Bersin, 2018). Addressing larger societal issues while at the same time create economical value. Maybe the most well-known example of this is Tony Chocolonely. But not all businesses have the luxurity to start from scratch with a revamped strategy that focuses on creating Social Impact. The majority of businesses today are those who have existed for a while and started without a social mission (MKB Nederland, 2019). However, they do feel the pressure, internal or external, to keep up with their new social role in society but they do not know how (Raman, 2011; Lepoutre, 2006; Laudal, 2011; Polonsky, 2009). Cases show that those ‘traditional’ businesses trying to change often fail to position themselves which results in negative backlash and irreversible damage (Confino, 2013). The question is: how to effectively help traditional business in their progress to change? Que Heartbeat Strategy, a research and strategy consultancy, who helps businesses in creating both economical and societal value (Heartbeat Strategy, n.d.). Through exploration of the concept ‘Social Impact’, relevant insights are found that led to the conclusion that there are three key aspects that contribute to solving the issue. The first two key aspects are to focus on internal alignment and focus on internal communication. It seems to be the key factor in creating change within a business rather than the current focus on external communication (Yuan, 2011; Dawkins, 2004). Internal alignment is created by defining a strong Social Impact positioning (Bhattacharya, 2010; Morsing, 2008; Forehand, 2003). This is key to create before carrying out Social Impact related activities and focus on external communication. And last, within a traditional business it is crucial to create awareness about how to balance idealism and business (Mousiolis, 2015; Longo, 2005; Personal interviews conducted with Moyee, Lemonaid and MUD Jeans, 2019). Insights led to the creation of a toolkit. The toolkit provides practical guidance to create a strong coherent vision on social impact. The first step to create lasting change. The toolkit allows Heartbeat Strategy to co-create with their client towards a Social Impact positioning. The co-creative approach ensures that the participants feel an ownership over the created content. The created positioning provides a strong starting point for traditional businesses onto which they can build further to create Social Impact in a sustainable, relevant and credible manner that is valuable for both business and society.

There is an increasing number of products in the market. Many of them get copied the second they launch. In the end, everything looks identical. Digitalization is the main reason behind, causing the commoditization of the products (van Erp, 2011). Eventually, a brand becomes the only thing creating difference among competitors. However, instead of blaming the digital revolution, it is possible to take a step back and find a way out by designing from the brand perspective. So, what is the brand experience? Brand experiences can be defined as the overall experiences that cover customers’ sensations, feelings, thoughts, and actions lived within a certain brand. These experiences cause customer responses through brand-related stimuli (Brakus et al., 2009). Designers play an important role in the creation of brand experiences by translating the brand into the design. A touchpoint is considered as the final version of a design that is made for a certain brand. It can be a website, mobile application, packaging or a tangible product. Therefore, the design of the manifestation is a quite similar process with the standard user-centric design processes. The only difference is that while the user-centric design processes have the focus of the user, in this design process the focus is the brand. During the brand experience design process, there are many difficulties that designers face. The main reason behind is that in the literature, there are no inductive or deductive methods for designing for brand experiences nor is there a process for making a product or a service ‘on brand’. Think the brand out loud is a tool designed for validating the concepts if they are ‘on brand’ or not. The tool consists of a manual, card set and two boards. The card set is a selection of brand values, personalities, and emotions, and boards (explained in the manual) help both to define the brand’s core elements and to select concepts according to those core elements. While the tool guides the design team to discuss and reach a consensus, at the same time, it reveals the strengths and weaknesses of each design concept and helps to define directions for the final design.

Consumers no longer buy products. They buy brands. The power of a brand lies in what consumers have “learned, felt, seen, and heard about the brand as a result of their experiences through interaction with brand’s touchpoints “(Keller, 2013, p. 69)). The designing of these experiences is called Brand Experience Design. Brands have become one of the organizations’ most valuable assets. This entails that storytelling has become more important. It helps ensuring a brand has a single and consistent proposition. However, when a brand does not live up to its story, the story is nothing more than empty words to persuade a consumer. Therefore, it will not only be essential to tell a consistent story but also to prove it. To achieve this, brands have to think from a central idea and translating it into the brand’s different touchpoints. Think about central ideas like Nike’s Just do it or Coolblue’s Alles voor een glimlach. While these are successful examples that organizations look up to, they don’t organize themselves to do the same. So the question is how to help these organizations think more from such central idea? This project is executed in collaboration with creative agency Selmore. Selmore believes they have the answer to this question: Guiding Ideas. Guiding Ideas are meant to spark inspiration and give guidance to the brand builders during brand experience design. It is a guiding principle and forms the basis of the design process of brand touchpoints (Calabretta et al., 2019). Selmore uses creativity to help brands grow with Guiding Ideas. Guiding Ideas can potentially function as brand ideas for organizations that help translate the brand’s story into the different touchpoints. Selmore believes in this potential, but the reality is still different. Selmore experiences that Guiding Ideas are not used correctly and therefore do not reach their full potential. In line with this observation, the purpose of this thesis was to research: How to exploit the unexploited potential of a Guiding Idea? In other words, the aim was to investigate how to create a warm bath for Guiding Ideas that, at the same time, can contribute to better usage of Guiding Ideas.

The goal of this graduation project is to know what the brand Mooie Boules is about and how this brand can be made stronger. This is done by concretizing the positioning of the company and how it could communicate according to this positioning. Mooie Boules is a five year old start-up, which organizes boules events and ran a pop-up bar for young people. With the desire to grow and to create multiple permanent bars throughout The Netherlands, all relevant aspects have to be made clear for being able to create a strong brand. While analyzing the company, aspects like the core values, mission and vision of the company have been defined with the team, which capture the essence of the brand. The competitors can be divided into (1) boules, (2) leisure and (3) boules & leisure. During the consumer/customer research the target group was found to be ‘bon vivants’: people who enjoy sensuous pleasures in life, such as food and drinks. The customers of Mooie Boules can be divided into four segments, which are divided by the amount of focus on boules and their visiting behaviour at Mooie Boules. These four are: the boules lover, the community friend, the day visitor and the experience seeker. Personas have been made which show what what the needs of these customer segments are. Regarding companies, which is an additional target group for the company outings at Mooie Boules, the company should focus on the already existing concept, but can adjust its offers to what the company in question wants. As a result of the total analysis, the positioning and the proposition of Mooie Boules have been defined. The positioning is: “Mooie Boules is the French originated all-in-one leisure brand for bon vivants, which enables them to enjoy their life with others. It does so by providing boules, parties, drinks and food at central places in cities.” By using the Brand Resonance Model it can be concluded that improving the brand imagery and matching the judgments and feelings with the communication, can make the brand stronger. By creating design guidance, the former research can be put into practice. This design guidance is then applied in a brand book, which consists of three parts: an explanation of the brand, the communication guidelines and a few examples of the application of these guidelines. To apply more detail on using the design guidance and to create a specified touchpoint, a website is created. It is a one-page website, with the goal to briefly explain Mooie Boules and its activities. Within the website, the upcoming food hall is explained, the different activities are illustrated and the current activities are shown.

In order to realize sustainable customer growth, a company could adopt different strategies: opening up a new market, developing new products, etc. Based on the SWOT analysis, No Label is small and lacking capital, while its main target group (middle-class men, aged 25-45) is growing rapidly. Thus, No Label’s biggest opportunity lies in focusing on the current market and attract more potential customers within the market. After several interviews with its potential customers, the designer found the main challenge for converting its potential customers to real customers is that those people don’t hold a strong belief that No Label is a “relevant brand” and “My kind of product”. The believes that the brand is relevant could result in higher brand loyalty and positive responses to brand-driven activities such as their willingness to pay a premium price, keep purchasing the same brand, adopt new products and so on. This project focuses on leveraging branding and design to elicit the belief of "relevant brand" and "My kind of product", thus converting potential customers of No Lable.

The accelerated digitalization of daily interactions, significantly influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic, has rendered the digital realm a fundamental aspect of life across generations. This shift has led to a transformation in digital asset management, ownership, and trade. The introduction of blockchain technology, especially non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has initiated a new era where digital items are capable of scarcity and uniqueness—attributes previously exclusive to physical luxury goods. In this light, the project investigates the convergence of blokchain technology with the luxury automotive sector, seeking to unlock the business potential for luxury Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Through creative trend research, emerging trends and developments have been identified, delineating the future landscape of luxury automotive. A strategic vision for luxury OEMs has been formulated, establishing a reference point for innovation and customer-centric product development. The project has pinpointed four products, each embodying the promise to resonate with the evolving values of luxury consumers and to propel business growth. These products are central to a structured roadmap, which is segmented into three strategic horizons, guiding towards the envisioned future. Each horizon encompasses specific goals, in harmony with the progression and integration of these digital products. The roadmap produced is a detailed blueprint for luxury automotive companies to contemplate the integration of blockchain technology with luxury experiences. The report concludes with an evaluation of the products and the roadmap by luxury automotive professionals, and suggestions for further research to refine the strategic approach. This comprehensive evaluation encapsulates the project’s full scope and its approach to aid luxury automotive towards more meaningful and superior digital experiences.

This project aims to enhance vertical farming through the development of innovative growing trays equipped with integrated ventilation channels that blow air vertically from beneath the plants. This vertical air supply ensures optimal air distribution, creating a microclimate at the plant level with ideal temperature, humidity, and CO2 levels, leading to healthier and more efficient crop growth.

Crisp is an online supermarket for fresh and high-quality food. By using an app, customers can order groceries which are delivered to your house throughout the Netherlands. One of the goals for Crisp as a start-up is to grow. Crisp desires controlled growth, where their operations scale simultaneously with their customer base. The framework for start-up growth from McClure (2007) is used for this research. The challenge Crisp faces is to optimize consumer retention, which can be explained by comparing the acquisition rate and the churn rate (McClure, 2007). To grow the customer base, resulting in company growth, retention needs to be increased. To stay competitive, Crisp needs to continuously innovate. According to Schumpeter (1949), who published the first academic ideas about innovation, companies have to continuously introduce ‘new combinations’ in their product design to remain profitable. Hence, the following main research question is addressed. How to increase the retention of digital grocer Crisp through innovation-based concept design? By internal and external analysis, search areas, or innovation themes, were concluded. From analyzing the company, consumer and collaborators internally and the competitors and context externally, four search areas were defined: transparency, ‘doing good’, engagement and personalization. These trends could be interesting for Crisp for the development of a new innovation for their application. The search areas were used as a basis for the qualitative consumer research. Interviews were held with the goal to validate which search area would be most interesting for product development. Thirteen consumer interviews were conducted, testing four hypotheses matching the search areas. By coding the interviews, categorizing and defining the relationships between the code groups, a grounded theory was developed. The qualitative research resulted in the development of a general model for online shopping, describing the process a Crisp consumer goes through while buying groceries. From this model, the design brief was formulated describing five focus points: creative, personal, transparent, convenient and informative. Afterwards, through a brainstorming session, many selection rounds, critical discussions and design iterations, a concept design was developed for the application. The ‘weekly planning’ is an integration of customers weekly planning of recipes in the Crisp app. It offers more personal convenience, it unburdens customers in a smart way and it is an easier guidance trough shopping. As this concept is designed from direct consumer needs following from extensive consumer research, it could contribute to an increase of retention. Also, a first concept validation round is held amongst online shoppers where retention is positively validated. Lastly, conducting an A/B experiment is recommended for Crisp to measure retention after the ‘weekly planning’ is launched. Acquisition and churn rates should be measured and compared, so the retention rate can be calculated. Also, consumer satisfaction, habit and experience and service quality can be measured to quantify the increase of retention in the real app context.

Building a relationship between brands and people is a concept that has been around for a while. It is a way for marketers to raise brand equity and favourably increase customer engagement, brand differentiation and customer loyalty. However, the way customers interact with brands and how brands themselves Crete value is changing. Digital platforms have established themselves as digital mediator between customers and brands. Within a platform economy, value is not merely created by the product or services made by the brand, but the network of participants creates it on the platform. Incorporating this changing economy into brand strategy is vital as 75% of the time, only one platform prevails. The exploration within the field of brand relationships and platform business strategy holds great value to maintain a competitive brand positioning. The thesis aims to answer the following question; How can the use of new insights and knowledge contribute to creating meaningful customer brand relationships within a future platform economy in the Dutch market? The project is done in collaboration with PwC’s Experience Center. At their Experience Center, they help their clients create innovative product and service offerings with the focus on creating a great customer experience. The exploration of this topic will allow them to be better equipped for upcoming client needs regarding the development of new experiences that help their clients form meaningful relationships with their customer. Through a literature review, a basic understanding is created of the topics of brand-consumer relationships and platform business model, which aims to establish the domain for future exploration. Through desk research and expert interviews, 176 insights were gathered. Through clustering and a generative session with design students, 12 clusters were identified. These ultimately led to 4 future scenario’s. Through further analysis, one future scenario was chosen for further exploration with the following vision. The interaction between the platform, consumer, and brand should work like a robust ecosystem where all stakeholders live in a symbiotic relationship, each serving their purpose and bringing value to the ecosystem. This led to the creation of the following 6 design principles aimed to enhance the brand experience for brands operating in a platform economy. (1) Relationships are not built overnight. (2) Collaborate or die (3) No such thing as a virtual hug (4) Branding is 99% emotion. (5) Doing good for society is doing good for branding. (6) Actually, start to listen. These design principles serve to guide the Experience Consulting team and other strategic designers in the creation of new products and services while deepening the relationship with the customer.

Product appearance can contribute to market success, which has been addressed by many research and practical cases. Visual Novelty, as an important aspect of product appearance, is proved to influence consumer purchase decisions. A brand is also used frequently to assist in making purchase decisions. It might be interesting for product designers and brand managers to know how different brands should choose the proper level of visual novelty to gain consumer preference. The present research investigates the joint influence of brand strength and visual novelty on consumer preference by drawing on the concepts of purchase motivations and roles of brands. This research deployed an experimental study through an online questionnaire, in which people were asked to evaluate their attitudes towards a novel design and a typical design for electric water kettles and Bluetooth speakers. Contrasting to the hypotheses, the results show that people more strongly prefer a typical-looking product for a strong brand than a weak brand. Moreover, the preference for a typical design is weaker and less significant for a weak brand. The possible reason could be that the product categories used in this research are mainly driven by utilitarian motivations instead of the predefined utilitarian and expressive motivations. People pursue little expressive need, so a visually novel product may be unnecessary for self-expression of uniqueness. Conversely, a more typical design might better fulfill the practical need for products and hence is preferred. Meanwhile, a strong brand helps to create more confidence about the possible performance quality and hence product choices than a weak brand, so the preference for a typical design is stronger for a strong brand than a weak brand.