Improving the brand awareness of a high-tech manufacturing campus
I created a business solution to stimulate innovation and strengthen brand awareness for Brainport Industries Campus. Through research, observation and context analysis, I interviewed people on the campus to identify problem areas, identified the key stakeholders, benchmarked other cases, and created and tested a prototype.
Context
Brainport Industries Campus (BIC) in Eindhoven belongs to Brainport Industries and brings together manufacturers and a college on one campus, combining education, innovation and production. It aims to be the global hotspot of the high-tech industry, with an inspiring climate for open innovation, and to show what the industry is.
We worked as a pair to create a business solution and hospitality experience that would stimulate innovation at the campus and turn it into a place of "wow." We focused on the people perspective and brought our expertise in the hospitality industry to the high-tech campus.
The challenge: turn a high-tech campus into a place of "wow" that stimulates innovation.
5 weeks in 2019, with a pair
Branding, design thinking, service design, experience design, concept design, context analysis, observing, benchmarking, prototyping, testing
Interviews, personas, value proposition canvas, user journey mapping, stakeholder mapping, customer journey mapping,
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Understanding
We started by researching innovations and the company, so we would ask the right questions when meeting BIC's two CEOs. We then visited the campus, listened to two presentations about the company, asked further questions, and walked around to observe the campus and identify problem areas. From our observations we identified five opportunity spaces and chose brand awareness. Brand awareness stood out because, during the visit, expectations didn't match reality. The CEOs told us BIC aims to be the industry hotspot, a "wow" campus that shows the world what the high-tech industry is and makes people want to be part of it. For that, the brand must be visible inside and outside the campus, and based on our observations, this needed improvement.
To understand BIC's customers, we first drafted the company itself as a customer persona, to grasp its personality, goals, motivations and frustrations. We then created Value Proposition Canvases to understand what BIC stands for, what it offers and how it answers its customers' needs, first from BIC's perspective in general, and then, by my partner, from a start-up located on the campus. A user journey map followed, tracing an example customer, a university student, through the touchpoints, with their thoughts, emotions, pains and gains. It gave us the questions for our next campus visit and started our ideation.
On that visit we spent a day interviewing over 20 people at the campus, going into depth with five. The interviews confirmed that the brand wasn't as visible and clear as desired and that several issues related to brand awareness existed. My partner then made a stakeholder map, which showed which current and potential stakeholders mattered most for our concept. Finally, my partner benchmarked other companies while I researched customer experience, engagement and value, and we combined what we had learned for the concept.
Direction
With the insights in place, it was time to decide which solution to develop into a concept. Inspired by the idea of an experience center, we decided to focus on it. Our reasoning started with the first impression, which matters and should make a visit to the campus memorable. Based on the interviews, we imagined how visitors arrive early for meetings and have time to spare. They are told that BIC is the high-tech industry hotspot and a perfect workspace for their company, but based on what they see, it is hard to believe in and imagine the benefits. So we wanted the concept to focus on improving the pre-experience and welcoming visitors.
BIC calls itself the factory of the future, bringing together the talent, equipment and companies of the future. Our research and observations showed that this brand image was neither understood nor visible enough, and that there was a need for a one-stop place to experience the whole BIC picture. An experience center was our answer.
Development
To test the idea, I prototyped the concept as a mock website and a teaser video. We tested it in two ways. Together we showed the video to 11 people in Breda city centre and asked short questions, and I sent the full prototype to four more people with more in-depth questions. The concept was received very positively. People described it as stimulating, educational and engaging, were interested in learning more and experiencing it in person, and one said it would help engage and connect with the brand. When we shared our progress, BIC's leadership told us they were working on a similar idea, which encouraged us to adjust our concept to fit their plans. Our hospitality and marketing background gave us a solid understanding of the guest experience and brand awareness, and visitors who experience the brand can become its ambassadors by sharing their stories.
While finalizing the concept, we shaped our pitch with a 10-step model, which made us define the problems we were answering and how we found them, the solution, the target group, the value to BIC, the alternatives, the users and the resources needed. We focused on four target groups identified through stakeholder mapping: visitor groups, company clients, potential future tenants and other visitors. We also created an example customer journey, for the owner of a future tenant company, showing how the experience center would ideally change their visit.
Outcome
Our concept takes brand awareness and the guest experience to the next level with an interactive experience center. It offers a chance to experience BIC's innovations and expertise in one room within the campus. It represents the brand by showcasing high-tech solutions, uses storytelling to explain the rise of smart industry in Eindhoven and at BIC, and creates interaction between experts and clients. Visitors can experience everything BIC has to offer in one space, companies can reinforce their brand and market their products, and start-ups can pitch their ideas and gain visibility, partners and sponsors.
BIC is growing, and taking visitors through every building and workspace will no longer be possible, so the center showcases BIC in one place and makes its high-tech and innovation clear and visible. Our recommendations covered where the center should be placed, how to scale it in future, the value of the investment, how to collaborate with the different stakeholders, how to implement it, and how much staff it needs to run smoothly through the year. For further questions, my partner gathered our findings into a FAQ that we handed to the CEOs during our pitch, and we delivered a written report with the detailed process and insights.
After the pitch, we received praising feedback on the concept from both CEOs.
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