Accenture Foresight App
The opportunity
Clients loved Accenture’s research-backed thought leadership. And there was good reason. The strength and leading nature of the ideas to the differentiated research approaches, to the unique creative packaging. Analysts loved it as well - consistently ranking it #1 or 2 in quality for several years (Source Global)
But…
Our clients behavior continued to evolve after COVID to more digitally native formats, not just the PDF.
We needed signal above the noise Our practitioners and consultants had a hard time finding “the good stuff” due to a highly “democratic” policy for the internal knowledge repository. We needed the signal above the noise
Our c-suite wanted a new way to deliver insights directly into our clients hands without the big campaign effort.
Competitively, our consultants kept saying that their clients all had the Mckinsey app - and while we had a mobile responsive website, we had no presence on devices.
Every time our c-suite went to a client meeting, they were being told that clients all have the McKinsey mobile app on their phone.
had a gap in our channel mix vs. competitors - where after COVID where a permanent shift had moved discovery of content into and the larger shift to digital consumption channels, we saw a lot more digital consumption How could we make sure that consultants could cut easily find our best thinking and so their clients could easily and their clients based on what we knew about how they liked to consume?
The idea
We created Accenture Foresight, a mobile app that provided clients and our people with our best thinking and case studies, in the formats and mediums our clients want.
To make it work, we needed to make sure our product and content approach were rooted in real clients. We started by focusing on 3 key personas…
It had to fit inside their existing campaign workflow and be dead simple to use. The agency engagement had to be no hassle - giving Accenture high predictability for budget planning and execution timelines. And of course, it had to deliver consistently high quality, fast, efficient production.
Our solve had four key components:
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One way to scale the product… the web. After signing a scope with us, clients could log into thesnacktory.com where they could see how many deliverables of each format type they had available to request in their bank.
They would initiate a project by uploading their approved long-form content (word or PDF) and picking one or more formats to produce.
They filled out a simple web-based brief with 3 inputs…
The key message
Any visual requirements
Anything to avoid
Once they ordered their “snacks”, the website acted as a workflow experience, providing status updates and emailing the client when the assets were ready to review and when the final was ready for download.
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At large companies, production speed is typically bogged down by layers of approvals - so we convinced our clients to cut that out entirely.
We limited client feedback to what was factually or legally inaccurate only. All other feedback was applied to the next set of deliverables requested.
That cut out the burden on the client to get layers of approvals and allowed them to get to market much more quickly and efficiently.
As a result of this agreement we were able to guarantee a 1-week SLA on all deliverables.
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We wanted to make it as easy as possible for clients to buy from us - making annual agency budget planning more predictable and eliminating the need to haggle before or after individual projects.
So we built a fixed ratecard for each client account where deliverables were the same cost for everyone as long as the agreed process was followed.
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While we needed creative specialists across different formats to execute the production, with the more standardized and predictable snacktory model, we were able to remove layers of account and project management and assign a single PM across an entire client account.
The PM acted as our CSR - driving client delivery, governing and analyzing the production process to recommend adjustments and updating the website to reflect the latest deliverable status.
The PM would support the client account leader (e.g. me) to ensure the snacktory business as a segment of the overall account remained profitable and ensured we evolved the product to meet our clients needs and keep them happy with the service.
We also allocated a portion of time for the existing Creative Director on the account to conduct periodic quality reviews and review outputs for brand alignment, providing coherance across the account.
Initial formats offered
1-2 min video summaries
Downloadable Infographics
Industry stat cards (web and PPT)
Slideshare decks
Hero images for web and social
“Self-interviews” (via physical kit sent to the leader to record themselves)
Accenture Strategy (compilation vid)
Accenture Security - Cyber Resilience
“Self-interview” training video to teach clients how to set up their recording
Industry stat cards
Goodyear
In year 2 we scaled to new clients with new formats
Comcast
AstraZeneca
American Express
Pitney Bowes
Emerson
The results?
Year 1 brought in $4MM revenue at a 48% operating margin
Ultimately it scaled to over 30 clients across the Publicis network
DigitasLBi partnered with Group Nine Media to bring clients a unique combination of media distribution with rapid content production to enable modern social marketing.