Miss Details Design

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is Adopt Technologies. We're in the managed IT [information technology] services world, predominantly focused on hosted software and hosted desktop services.

What is your position?

I am the managing member and primary owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Miss Details Design?

I actually had purchased the business and we wanted to do a complete rebrand and name change. We engaged Miss Details to help us throughout that entire process, which included all the standard services involved with a rebrand including a new website.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We engaged them to assist with name selection, logo, and messaging designs, taglines, everything that had to do with branding, color palette, messaging, and website redesign. We had some partners that worked alongside us to rewrite content and things of that nature. They also did other business deliverables, like business cards, all of our brochures, and one-page marketing pamphlets. We still engage them to create pieces here and there that we want to use for any marketing purposes.

How did you come to work with Miss Details Design?

It's been so long that we've worked with them, and we've become friends as well through that process. The relationships developed, and I honestly can't even remember who referred them to us. Our selection process for any service is always a diligent one, and we always collect information and referrals from people we trust.

At that point in time, we reached out to probably four different firms, met with all the principals. We went through a formal proposal process to get the scope of work and costs.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was under $10,000. I have some good friends who are in the hotel business, and when I showed what we got from their services, they started saying, "Wow, we paid eight times the amount you paid for the same services." In turn, I'm referring Tanya [Gagnon, chief executive officer at] Miss Details Design to them because they want to meet her.

What is the status of this engagement?

We bought the company in 2010, and we initially engaged Miss Details in mid-2011.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The quality was great. I refer Miss Details Design to anybody looking for branding services. We've received nothing but compliments on all of our branding, logos, and everything else. Everyone thinks that it turned out great. I was pleased. I don't think there's another firm that could have delivered what we got from them, not only in terms of the quality of the work, but also in terms of the relationships that have developed from our partnership.

What distinguishes Miss Details Design from other providers?

We're a small business, so I think the biggest thing for us is, even though Tanya, the owner, might not be managing every project that comes through Miss Details, she's still involved. As a small business owner, and that's one of the benefits from working with other small businesses. I want to work with the principal and be able to have not only their attention but also their talent.

Working with bigger companies as a small business leads to us getting marginalized because of our size. We don't want that. That's one of the big pieces. We were able to retain Tanya's caliber of talent and have it engaged throughout our process.

Is there anything Miss Details Design could have improved or done differently?

I think at one point there was a consultant she'd engaged to assist us with one part of the process, and I think she didn't probably manage them as aggressively as she might have if they were under her direct employ. I ended up having to get involved in the management of that consultant a little bit more than I would have liked, but it was not anything that would have ever changed my opinion of reengaging them for future projects.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work for the Arizona Technology Council. We are Arizona's largest trade association for science and technology companies. We have a very similar model to a chamber of commerce, but instead of a chamber of commerce, which supports businesses of all verticals and sizes, we only support sophisticated, high-growth funded tech-oriented companies.

What is your position?

I'm the director of marketing and communications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Miss Details Design?

I was looking to consolidate a lot of spread out agency work into one primary design agency that could handle most of our design needs. I wanted someone that was strong in understanding brand strategy, and the way an organization's brand played into all the different facets of their marketing, whether it was digital, graphic design, or messaging. I really wanted someone that could be a cohesive partner to help us keep our brand together and on point.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We've worked with them on a number of different projects. They've been our primary design and marketing firm for many years. The most significant project we worked on together was a comprehensive rebrand that we undertook in 2011. Messaging, identity, color, position statement, tagline, mission, website, everything that goes into a brand. The smaller projects have largely been focused on various targeted ad campaigns that we've worked on.

How did you come to work with Miss Details Design?

We serve Arizona companies, so having a local firm was crucial. I initially found them through social media, and when we were vetting potential partners, they met all of our targets in terms of their ability to deliver and quality of past work. While that aspect was obviously important, I also wanted to work with somebody that I could build a relationship with. When I met Tanya [Gagnon, the founder of Miss Details Design], we had an instant connection, and I felt confident that we would be able to work together very closely. That's ultimately why we decided to go with them.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

During the course of our engagement [seven years], we've spent in the $100,000 to $200,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've worked with Miss Details on a variety of projects since 2008.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What have been the results of their work? Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The year we launched the re-brand, we actually had our best year as far as percentage increase in the number of companies we added that we've had in the eight years that I've been there. I don't actually have those numbers in front of me, but they were the strongest that year, and we have not beat that percentage increase since then. We were still in the middle of a kind of a down economy at that point, so to have that percentage level of growth that year, we 100 percent attribute it to the rebrand.

What distinguishes Miss Details Design from other providers?

This doesn't necessarily apply to me so much, but it applies to a lot of their other work in the B2C [business-to-consumer] space. I think there a lot of branding firms who are really just graphic design companies. Miss Details is very experienced with brand strategy and sensory branding, which are much higher-level forms of branding.

Is there anything Miss Details Design could have improved or done differently?

Not that I can think of. One thing, I will say, that they've already improved on is the quality of their designs. I've seen a continued level of improvement since we first started working with them in 2008.