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Suggestions
Project Leader, Annetta Kelso from S&R Communication explains that “inviting customers to personalize and create their own unique, designer 3D printed lamp for their home, is an original concept and we wanted to co-create a really strong marketing and social media story around this. We were inspired by the recent Signify Smart Office Hackathon and decided to see if we could develop the concept into a marketing hackathon and this is when our Markethon was born”.
Creative teams
Four Teams of students with creative design and communication backgrounds, took part in the event. They came from the Design Academy Eindhoven, the Technical University of Eindhoven, Hanze University of Groningen, and there was another team comprised of our Signify Interns.
Design Manager, Laura Taylor, developed the creative process for the event; “The Markethon process actually started a week before the event with a Fabric tour at Maarheeze, where our 3D printing factory is located.’’ During the visit the students got the chance to experience closely our production process and look and feel the diverse luminaires available in our experience center, which generated a lot of inspiration for the actual event date.
Markethon formula
The Markethon formula was based on the concept of the Student Teams speed dating with various Signify Marketing experts, to discuss, refine and sharpen their proposals, before pitching them to a Signify jury. We invited a group of our own social media, digital marketing, design and marketing and communication specialists to challenge the students on their marketing ideas and judge them on a number of key aspects to decide on the winning concepts. It is the intention to incorporate some of these ideas in our marketing innovation process for Philips MyCreation.”
Passion for results
What emerged was a very real sense of the need for interaction between the brand and the consumer using social media platforms as a bridge. 3D printing technology, when related to lighting, is still new for a lot of people. That’s why using an interactive way to talk about it could result into a more exciting and organic form of connecting with costumers.
The idea of an interactive way of communication allows us to shift from simply delivering a passive message, to creating an active experience and an innovative form of content that can be amplified via more broadcast channels. This can be valuable for the people we are reaching and facilitate meaningful conversations about the brand.
“The winning team from the Design Academy turned the challenge around on us. They took a step back and painted a broader, alternative strategic marketing approach for Philips MyCreation, advising us to spend more time considering the customer journey and focus on creating emotional attachment around 3D printed design, moving from ‘My customization’ to ‘My Creation”.
With further recommendations for developing a theme around sustainability, as the material to print the luminaires is recyclable, the students also tackled the importance of highlighting this aspect as well as working with top designers to craft inspiring pieces of beautiful 3D printed lighting art. Overall, the marketing ideas gave plenty of input for marketing discussions taken by the 3D printing team.
Innovation out of the box
It is beneficial for a start-up to think outside the box and being open to exploring new ways of doing things. Annetta Kelso said “This has proved to be a very interesting way of capturing external input for marketing ideas, in which unexpected angles can emerge and new perspectives can be considered. Both the students and Signify benefited from this approach and had fun along the way.”
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