Creative Unity Cards
Creating and producing an expandable series of cards that set expectations between creative service providers and clients.
Background
Without the right way to develop a common language between creatives and clients, there is the opportunity for misalignment where both parties talk past one another.
We decided to create a series of cards with common bookend comparisons to articulate a client's appetite for factors such as risk, the depth of involvement and overall business relationship.
Our Approach
We began by thinking about the different factors that go into framing a project or even an overall business relationship. We landed on six “bookend” pairs that client expectations and behaviors tend to fall within:
Creator vs. Editor - How involved is the client in the ideation stage?
Home Runs vs. Base Hits - How big of an impact is the client looking to make?
Friend vs. Acquaintance - How deep does the client want the relationship to be?
Data-Informed vs. Opinion-Driven - Is the client's decision-making guided by facts and figures or gut feeling?
Collaborator vs. Order Taker - Does the client want the creative partner at the table as decisions are being made?
New vs. Familiar - How much of a risk is the client willing to take with an “out of the box” idea?
Each card pair is presented at a time. Whichever card the client leans towards stays on the table and the other is removed.
When all the cards are exhausted, a clear picture emerges for both parties: “I'm looking for a creative partner (Friend) to help us with some unique (New), big ideas (Home Runs). We will provide customer information (Data-Informed) and will work with you on initial approaches (Collaborator) that we can refine into a final campaign (Editor).”
The Result
We have used our cards in several client engagements and the meetings have been fun. The cards have also done their job, providing the clearly set expectations to fairly evaluate a new opportunity. Several clients have asked us for card sets to keep and we have sold additional sets as well.
The beauty of the card approach is that when additional factors outside of those identified by the existing pairs come up frequently, the deck can easily be expanded to include that new pair.
Discipline
Graphic Design, Product Design
Client
Self/Honestly
Responsibilities
Art direction and design, copywriting and printing oversight
Project Team
Elliot Strunk, Studio H
David Horne, Honestly