The Studio That Won't Use a Mood Board

Idris Calloway: Last Call, I'm Idris Calloway. Priya Nandakumar leads strategy at a branding studio in Bristol that refuses to pitch with a mood board, even when the client asks for one by name. Priya, welcome.

Priya Nandakumar: Thanks, Idris. And yes, they do ask by name. It is in about half the briefs we get.

Idris Calloway: What is wrong with a mood board?

Priya Nandakumar: Nothing, as a private tool. Our designers make them all the time. The problem is showing one. A client picks the three pictures they like, and suddenly those three pictures are the brief. You have handed them a menu before you have agreed what they are hungry for.

Idris Calloway: So what do you do instead?

Priya Nandakumar: A three-hour intake conversation. We book it before any visual work starts, with the client team and ideally one person who is not in marketing, somebody from operations or customer service. We have a script of about twenty questions, and we record and transcribe it.

Idris Calloway: Three hours is a lot of a client's time.

Priya Nandakumar: It is, and that is part of the point. If a client cannot find three hours, they will not find the time to make decisions later either. The questions are things like: describe a customer you would be glad to lose, what did your best year feel like inside the building, what word would you ban from your own website.

Idris Calloway: And what comes out of it?

Priya Nandakumar: A written document, about four pages, that quotes the client back to themselves. Then the first visual work responds to that. When a client sees a typeface, they judge it against their own words, not against a picture of a Scandinavian kitchen.

Idris Calloway: The description says it is harder to sell internally than it sounds.

Priya Nandakumar: Much harder. Our designers felt it delayed the fun part. And the account team hated it, because a mood board is the easiest thing to put in a pitch. It looks like progress. Telling a procurement panel that you will ask them questions for three hours does not look like progress.

Idris Calloway: Have you lost pitches because of it?

Priya Nandakumar: At least four that we know of. One client told us outright that the other agency brought pictures and we brought homework. But our first-round approval rate on identity work went from roughly forty percent to seventy-five. Fewer rounds pays for a lot of lost pitches.

Idris Calloway: What happens when a client insists?

Priya Nandakumar: We show them the transcript and ask which parts they want illustrated. Usually that ends the request.

Idris Calloway: Priya Nandakumar, thank you. That is Last Call.