The ‘MERK MONITOR’: A data-driven approach towards capturing Brand Experience. Master Thesis Strategic Product Design by Peter de Jong The ‘Merk Monitor’: A data-driven approach towards capturing Brand Experience July 2019 AUTHOR Pieter de Jong [email protected] MASTER THESIS MSc. Strategic Product Design Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering Delft University of Technology GRADUATION COMMITTEE Chair | Prof. Dr. H.J. Hultink Faculty of Industrial Design - Product Innovation Management Mentor | Dr. A.-M. Kranzbühler Faculty of Industrial Design - Product Innovation Management Company mentor | Ir. A.K. Hutter Creative Strategist The mystery of the human mind, by Robert Flud. Preface You are about to read the thesis of my Anne, thank you for helping me improve graduation project for the master Strategic my academic writing and for sharing your Product Design at the Delft University of expertise on experiences. You also showed Technology. me when and where I should rely on my own choices, which was helpful. For the last 6 months I bravely explored the multidimensional topic of Brand Erik-Jan, thank you for reminding me that Experience. This thesis is the result of I am a (strategic) designer by heart. This unravelling my intertwined thoughts of the advise gave me guidance through the whole complex construct into a linear story. As project. always: the end is here too soon. I met a lot of interesting people at GuiltyPeople and I also want to thank my friends and family during this project, to which I would like to who supported me, even though I was busy express my appreciation. writing this thesis. I especially want to thank my fiancée for At first, I want to thank God for blessing me supporting me every day. Listening to my with the amazing opportunities I got and the stories and pointing out my communication people I met during my studies. flaws was extremely valuable to me. Furthermore I want to thank all the people I truly wish readers will gain some new who made this project possible and for insights from reading this thesis. letting me contribute to an actual project . Also to all the people who made time for me and the purpose of this thesis. Sincerely. There are a few ones I like to highlight: Arne, thank you for being my ‘soundboard’, always making time for my questions. Your practical thinking really helpt me futher in moments where I was stuck in my own Peter de Jong process. Executive summary During the 1980s the ‘experiential view’ of The design process proposes a set of a consumers buying process was proposed variables (measurements) to give insight in literature. Since then, the experience a in the four dimensions. Each dimension is consumer has when interacting with a brand made up of three attributes, which can be (Brand Experience) has been a frequently measured either with observant variables discussed topic in research and practise. or surveying variables. Measurements are Different disciplines propose measurement mostly done at digital touch points, such scales to capture this brand experience (BE). as social media, the website of the brand or However literature does not agree on one through surveys via for example e-mails. generally accepted method. The marketing As different attributes are valuable for practise extensively utilises simple evaluative different clients of GP, a selection toolkit is surveys such as the NetPromotorScore (NPS) made. and CustomerSatisfaction (CSat) to evaluate When a selection of fitting variables is the BE of a consumer. decided upon, they form the metrics of the As the world is becoming more and more dashboard together. The thesis proposes digital oriented, consumers leave digital a dashboard containing ten variables as behavioural traces. This brings new starting point. When the dashboard is measurement possibilities. implemented and used right, both GP and the client will be able to analyse the BE and Accordingly, this thesis proposes a data- anticipate on this analysis. driven method for measuring BE. The The launch of the dashboard will make method is manifested through the design GP able to monitor BE through real-time of a digital tool. This resulted in the measurement. This contributes to GP being MerkMonitor, a digital dashboard which an expert in BE. analyses the experiences consumers have when interacting with a brand. Finally, the Merk Monitor was evaluated through six sessions with Strategists, Originating back to psychology, literature Technology experts and clients. Also a MVP identifies that this brand experience was developed and a prototype was explored consists of Sensorial, Affective, Cognitive to ensure feasibility. and Behavioural responses. Literature shows This led to recommendations for futher a call for new types of measurement to developping and implementations of the capture these dimensions. product. Reading Guide The thesis is made up of five parts, each containing several chapters. On the left, the purpose of every part is explained. Each chapter starts with a short introduction which explains the content. Most chapters are concluded by a short conclusion on the content in the chapter. Project Highlights Background Important takeaways for GuiltyPeople are Introducing the graduation project and its highlighted in green bold text. initiators. Presenting the framed problem and how the problem will be approached. ABBREVIATIONS AND KEY TERMS BE - Brand Experience IDE - Industrial Design Engineering B2C - Business to Consumer I. Conceptual B2B - Business to Business SME - Small and Medium Enteprises Framework LoR - List of Requierments Understanding the construct of brand experience NPS - Net Promoter Score through conducting a literature study. CSat - Customer Satisfaction CES - Customer Effort Score IOT - Internet of Things API - Application Programming Interface discover CMS - Content Management System e.g. - exempli gratia (for example) II. Exploration et. al - et aliii (and others) Deepening the academic knowledge on BE by Brand stuyding the field of practise. Focussing on Identity (mark) of an organisation or firm, manifested as asset. the business, human and technology domains, Consumer A person that uses goods or services. insights are deduced to a design brief. Brand Experience Subjective internal consumer responses (sensations, feelings and cognition) and behavioural responses evoked to a brand’s define offering during the entire customer journey. Customer Journey III. Ideation Sequence of interactions a consumer has with a brand. Metric Creating possible solutions answering the design Figures or statistics that measure results. Measurement brief. Collecting data at a certain place. Scale develop Series of questions used to make up a score. Data IV. Conceptualisation Facts and statistics collected as quantities or characters. Dashboard Delivering the final concept which answers the Digital overview of metrics. Front-end design brief and the framed problem. The part of a digital system which is interacted with directly. Back-end The part of a digital system which is not directly acessable. BE Dimensions deliver Segmentation of BE on sensorial, affective, cognitive and behavioural level. V. Conclusion BE Attributes Indicators for defining the BE dimensions BE Variables Evaluation of the deliverables and Specific measurement possibilities for measuring recommendations for future research and BE attributes. development. Table of Contents PROJECT BACKGROUND 1. The republic of GuiltyPeople......................................................................................... 10 2. Problem and assignment.................................................................................................12 I. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 3. The Brand Experience framework................................................................................16 4. Dimensions of Brand Experience..................................................................................19 5. Measuring Brand Experience........................................................................................ 22 II. EXPLORATION 6. Trend research..................................................................................................................24 7. Technology scouting........................................................................................................26 8. Market research................................................................................................................28 9. Consumer understanding.............................................................................................. 30 10. Window of Opportunities.............................................................................................. 32 11. Design brief........................................................................................................................33 III. IDEATION 12. Data visualisation............................................................................................................. 38 13. Design process and design directions........................................................................ 40 IV. CONCEPTUALISATION 14. The ‘Merk Monitor’: Form and Content......................................................................44 15. The ‘Merk Monitor’: Set-up and Proposal..................................................................48 16. The ‘Merk Monitor’: Monitoring BE..............................................................................51 IV. CONCLUSIONS 17. Product Evaluation...........................................................................................................53