Case Studies

When it comes to designing buildings, one of the toughest things architects have to deal with is ceilings, especially in commercial buildings or situations where something fancier than your basic drywall residential ceiling is in order. Not only do they need to specify the finishes, the sound attenuating rating, and fire ratings, but they also have to design how the ceiling system is going to be put together, not just designing the grid system but the perimeter system that holds it together as well. Not an easy task, especially if they’re dealing with non-standard sizes and unique perimeter configurations.

While some architects are experts at designing ceilings, most aren’t. It’s not their fault: most of the time, they don’t have to bother with specing drywall for the ceiling of the box, which is the room they're designing. But if they want to do something that pushes the envelope of design, figuring out how it all fits together can be a daunting task, not to mention being able to provide the specifications for the materials and grid system. Lack of knowledge limits their creativity. And their lack of creativity was limiting Armstrong Ceilings’ sales.

When I was tasked with figuring out how to help Armstrong, I began by doing something radical: listening to architects. I interviewed about a dozen architects at different firms, moderated a few focus groups, and spent some quality time talking to the people at Armstrong in charge of sales who dealt with architects all the time. What I learned was that they had two big issues: 1) it was cumbersome to transcribe product numbers and details when building their specifications; and 2) designing perimeter systems — the systems which incorporated the hardware that held up the ceiling grid — was a huge pain in the butt.

The solution I developed addressed both of these issues. It consisted of a custom application that was able to access Armstrong’s full database of products so that someone using it could select the products and quantities they wanted in order to add them to a specification list, somewhat like the “shopping cart” we’re all familiar with when buying things online. Rather than browsing a catalog and having to transcribe product numbers, dimensions, materials, and descriptions, they could pick the products they wanted and have their specification sheet built for them.

The perimeter design problem was tackled by deploying the architects and engineers of Armstrong — the people who developed, designed, and tested the actual products — to design a suite of perimeter systems, grids, and ceiling configurations complete with specifications, design drawings, and CAD files which could be incorporated into the designs the end user architects were designing. Faced with a challenging ceiling system — or simply in search of inspiration — architects using the product could browse for ideas, find the ceiling they wanted to use, enter the dimensions and other specifications of their project, and receive back a full specification list, design renderings, and a set of CAD drawings they could import into their project. Ceiling problem? Solved!

While salespeople gave away the initial product for free to encourage their customers to choose Armstrong, the response was positive enough that Armstrong eventually turned it into a product they sold. By providing a tool that made it easier for their customers to specify their products right at the design stage, they could get their products specified at the earliest stage possible, ensuring that Armstrong Ceilings would be incorporated into the project when it was built.escription text goes here

One thing that most people don’t realize is that while thee’s a national association, the real day-to-day operations are conducted by regional associations. These regional associtions not only handle regulatory and business issues of their regional members, but when it comes to advertising about the value of using a REALTOR® when it comes to purchasing real estate.

The idea of promoting the REALTOR® brand was always important, but as online real estate sites began to dominate the real estate industry — especially the residential industry — more and more people buying homes began to question why they needed a REALTOR® to begin with. After all, if they no longer needed someone to find them homes because they could more or less find them online by themselves, why cough up a hefty percentage of the sale price when it came to buying or selling their home?

While the DIY approach might appeal to naive first-time homebuyers, anyone who’s been through the home buying process themselves can probably understand the value of having someone representing your interests to the seller. Not only can a third party provide assistance when it comes to negotiating the sale price, but they also can help with the reams of paperwork, obscure legal issues, and all the other maddening minutiae that go into buying or selling a home. They’re the expert. You’re most likely not. And it’s nice to have an expert on your side.

In order to combat the erosion of the REALTOR® brand among homebuyers, my agency embarked on a national advertising campaign designed to promote the REALTOR® brand and make homebuyers aware of the value of having a professional in their corner. And while the bulk of the campaign consisted of national TV and radio spots backed up by national print and out-of-home advertising, a lot of the heavy lifting for the campaign was being delegated by the national association to the regional associations because they had a better handle on their local markets and were better at understanding the messages that would resonate with their local target audiences.

But there was one problem. To put it delicately, the regional associations had never invested very heavily in creative resources. Most of the advertising they did was produced on an ad-hoc basis by people with other jobs. Because of this, it lacked brand consistency and often did more to hurt the REALTOR® brand than help it. 

We couldn’t blame them, though. They didn’t have the budget to invest in permanent creative resources. It wasn’t their priority for very good reasons. Sure, we could have taken over the regional advertising responsibilities. Still, NAR wasn’t too excited about the prospect of paying for us to manage over 1,200 local associations/boards and over 50 state and regional groups. So how could we ensure that the ads that got out to those groups were consistently on-brand and on-message while allowing them to customize them to fit their local markets and even streamline the production to the point where it didn’t burden their already-stretched resources?

The answer was to offload most of the work to a web-based tool that allowed them to browse a selected set of print, out-of-home, and direct mail ads, choose the ones that would work for them, and then customize with localized information. Once they’d customized their ads and mailings, they could then push a button to generate printer-ready PDFs, which could be sent to the media channels where they’d chosen to advertise, to the printers who’d produce the mailings, and to the outdoor companies who’d put up their billboards. All they’d have to do was email or upload the customized files to launch their campaigns…. These campaigns were true to the national association’s brand standards and campaign guidelines.

The result? Instant adoption and a coherent brand message sent out across the country, localized with the details that resonated with local consumers and also made the local and state associations happy…not an easy task.

A lot of museums look at their websites as “virtual” versions of their physical space. They attempt to recreate the visitor experience of walking through the museum with information architectures that mimic how their space is organized while privileging the visual presentation of the objects in their collection with lavish, hi-res images. And while they often include scholarly details about the pieces in their collection, the emphasis is often on simulating the personal experience of the visitor.

The problem is that it'll never work, given today’s technology. Heck, it might never work even when fully-immersive VR is ubiquitous and even more sensory-intensive than it is today.

Why? Because that which works best online is that which will only work online. The converse is true as well: in-person experiences do what they do best when they fully embrace the in-person experience by offering sensory experiences that can’t be had in any other way. Seeing the smooth finish and incredible detail of an ancient Egyptian temple statue is one thing…actually running your hands over it and feeling the smooth coolness of the marble is quite another. Seeing Leonardo’s The Last Supper filling the wall with larger-than-life images painted on the wall of a former stable in Milan is a transcendent experience that can’t compare to viewing a picture online, no matter how high resolution.

I’ve always believed this, so when I received the RFP from a major national art museum (one of the Smithsonian museums on The Mall in Washington DC. Name withheld due to NDA.), I knew that I had to let them know where I and my company stood when it came to designing websites for museums. In the introduction to the proposal I wrote:

The best use of any medium is one that takes advantage of the unique characteristics of that medium. The radio (traditional or streaming through a computer)  is perfect for music because listening to music is an auditory experience. Yes, live music can incorporate both visual and tactile (and sometimes olfactory, depending on the venue) experiences as well, but live music is not the same as recorded music. We can multitask while listening to an audio recording but miss out on a lot if we try to do so at a live music event. The same goes for television and film: they’re not the same thing, even if they’re both time-based audio/visual media. Try watching a film while cooking and you’ll discover this for yourself fairly quickly.

In the same way, a virtual experience — even if presented in a high-resolution virtual reality format — is not the same as entering a physical space in the “real world.” VR is always going to be limited by resolution, freedom of movement, and the lack of involvement of all the senses. It screams “simulation” and, just like the virtual mall, removes the enjoyable parts of the “real world” experience, leaving only the drudgery of traversing space with the added complication of having to navigate through a mediated experience.

Simulation is never as satisfying as the physical experience of being present with the objects being viewed. When we view a simulation — no matter how well it may replicate the real-world experience — we know we are separated from the real object being simulated through photography, video, or even a combination of media. Not to get too postmodern lit-crit on you, but the disappointment that we feel when we view a simulation is because it is, as Jean Baudrillard calls it, a simulacrum, which he defines as “the truth which conceals that there is none.” In other words, knowing that something isn’t real emphasizes our disconnection from what the simulacrum is standing in for. One of the main reasons that people go to an art museum is because there’s no more authentic way to experience a work of art than to be in the physical presence of a unique object. 

The simulation we experience online lacks the social aspects of attending a museum in person. Even if we experience a museum by ourselves, the excitement of others — even if expressed in hushed whispers — adds to the experience in a way that’s difficult, if not impossible, to replicate online. Being in the presence of others and engaging in the collective experience of viewing works of art adds to the total experience in a very tangible way that viewing a solitary online simulation can not.

A virtual simulation of a physical experience cannot — at least for the foreseeable future of technology — engage all the senses in the same way that being physically present in a museum can. When we’re experiencing art in person we’re not just seeing the work, we’re hearing others experience it through their gasps and whispers, feeling the presence of others and even the movement of the air as others traverse the gallery, and often smelling the smells — even if faintly — of antiquity and the materials used to create the works. We may not be consciously aware of how our other senses are engaged, but we certainly notice their lack when we’re simply viewing something through our screens.

Finally, there’s the presence of the museum itself and the settings the work is displayed in. Even using 360-degree virtual reality technology the physical impact of the space can’t be remotely replicated online. As you well know, this context is crucial to the total visitor experience.t isn’t something that can be simulated. It must be experienced.

They agreed and hired us. And after extensive user research and lengthy interviews and discussion groups with staff, curators, donors, and Board members, it turned out that they agreed with our viewpoint as well. The new site wouldn’t attempt to replikcate the experience of visiting the museum, it would provide context, serve the needs of visitors, and enhance the physical experience by providing information and supplemental materials that couldn’t be provided online. Even better, it would provide users with a way of understanding the collection that wasn’t bound by physics but rather inspired by their interests.

When—and if—you think of utilitarian products such as trashcans, food storage bins, sewing carts, or even plastic drinking glasses, you probably think that they’re all commodities. After all, isn’t one pitcher, plastic cutting board, or outdoor trashcan more or less the same? If it holds liquid, protects your chefs’ knives, or provides a place for your guests to throw their trash, does it really matter who made it?

This was the problem that Rubbermaid Commercial Products was facing. Their customers see what they make as commodities, and when it comes to commodities, price is the most important buying decision factor. As RCP faced increasing cost pressures coming from cheap knockoff brands produced in China and other countries with somewhat lax intellectual property protection, they saw their market share decline.

And if knockoff products weren’t bad enough, they also faced problems with their salesforce, Instead of employing a salesforce directly who could be educated and incentivized to promote Rubbermaid products with superior performance and reliability, most of their products were being sold by independent sales reps, distributors, and even consultants to whom one SKU was just as good as another. If a sale was being held back because the customer was balking about the price, they had no problem subbing in a cheaper knockoff brand. Better than losing the commission, right?

Unfortunately, this approach didn’t exactly lead to optimal outcomes for their customers. The knockoff products often had quality issues and didn’t always work well with related products from other manufacturers, such as Rubbermaid. Even worse, Rubbermaid’s brand recognition and ubiquity in the industries they sold to, often customers thought that the products that were failing were Rubbermaid products. The result? Unhappy customers, increasing commodification, and declining brand equity.

My agency was already doing B2B advertising and sales materials for RCP, but because of all these problems, we were fighting an uphill battle. How could we do something that was going to break out of this downward spiral?

The answer came after long discussions with independent sales reps, RCP communications folks, and brand managers at Rubbermaid Commercial Products. We attended their annual sales conferences, held interviews with sales reps, went into the field to talk to end users, and brainstormed with those at RCP tasked with increasing sales. What we discovered was transformative: no one product stood alone. In the best-run facilities, the products they purchased for the kitchen, the front of the house, waste management, and food storage worked together to create synergies that collections of one-off products couldn’t match. It was the system that mattered.

In effect, we realized during one long afternoon meeting that when it delivered on its promise, RCP wasn’t a product company; it was an information company. Individual products could stand alone, but the way they worked together — combined with the knowledge that RCP brought to the table after decades of serving industries like food service, stadium management, plant operations, and materials handling — RCP products worked together to make operations more efficient, more productive, and more profitable for their customers.

But how do we get this across to salesforce? Flyers and mailings weren’t going to cut it. They needed a tool that helped demonstrate to their customers the value that genuine Rubbermaid products could provide while making it easier for customers to buy those products. The end result was the “Project” series of applications focused on specific verticals (stadiums, fast-casual restaurants, etc.), which sales reps could carry with them on their sales calls in order to turn those calls from picking products to choosing systems of RCP products tailored to their needs.

While deploying the new apps into the salesforce took a combination of education, demonstration, and incentives, the results were almost immediate. The first app deployed — “Project Stadium” — resulted in a World Cup venue choosing the entire line of RCP products as a system for the event. No longer were Rubbermaid products a commodity…now they added value far beyond individual SKUs.