The Yard Creative

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW), which is a global destination shopping center. I’m the SVP of development within URW Airports, LLC and I’m in charge of the airports and travel retail division.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Yard Creative?

We’re looking to develop the commercial aspects of a new airport in the US. We need a thought leader to research and provide editorial commentary on the current and projected state of customers and certain brands. A lot of our contracts are long-term and we’ll be involved with this one for many years in the future, so we need to do some fresh and creative thinking around what kind of brand attitudes will prevail hereafter. We brought in The Yard Creative to help us with this challenge.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The engagement had multiple stages. The first was a workshop and creative session with various internal stakeholders. We tried to capture how we currently do things and what opportunities and challenges were present, which helped The Yard Creative get up to speed on what we’re trying to accomplish and created an avenue for our team to get feedback and become involved. This stage was about exploring the behavior of the next generation of travelers.

The next stage was broken down into three pieces revolving around innovating and designing offers for our customers' attitudes. This was when The Yard Creative conducted research and gathered information on their own to produce an output. We had not originally anticipated the next part, but as we got into the work, we decided that we needed a detailed survey of potential global customers or travelers from around the world, specifically those from key regions. 

The third stage involved consolidating all the information into an executive summary or a roadmap. It was about distilling the research into more concrete recommendations and action items for our company.

What is the team composition?

We regularly engage with around six associates from their side.

How did you come to work with The Yard Creative?

A year and a half ago, we hired a new person who had previously worked with The Yard Creative on a project involving Heathrow Airport. The team came highly recommended, so we took them up for this endeavor.

How much have you invested with them?

The total value of the project is $137,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We kicked off in January 2021 and are about to complete the engagement.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We have yet to receive the final deliverable, so we cannot enact the recommendations from the research just yet. However, I will say that the team is extremely creative. They’re thought-provoking professionals that really challenge us to think bigger and stretch our view of the world.

Our team finds The Yard Creative inspiring. They really force us to be aspirational when it comes to our approach. Even if we only end up enacting 25% of their recommendations, it would be a world of difference from what we would’ve achieved on our own. 

How did The Yard Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

The Yard Creative is very organized. They knew what they needed to do and when. They were also very accommodating with our schedules, considering that they’re based in Europe and we’re based in the US. Despite working across different time zones, the team was always on time.

The Yard Creative ran very focused and moderately paced meetings that kept us on track with the topic at hand. There is always an allotment of time set aside for exploring different ideas that would come up during our discussions.

We use file-sharing services and video conference tools to conduct our meetings virtually.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Yard Creative very much has their finger on the pulse of retail and technology trends. They’re knowledgeable when it comes to different kinds and generations of customers. We had not worked with many firms that do what they do, but it was a really different experience for us. We’re incredibly impressed with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One hiccup that we’ve had along the way was around the customer research piece; it only became apparent later on in the project that we needed to incorporate this activity. I don’t think there was any miscommunication, but they could improve on properly scoping the project out of the gate.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It really comes down to commitment. You will get the best out of the engagement if you involve and commit your best people to the journey.