Research-Focused Field Report
Sacha Joseph, Rob Gerstner, Eileen Ford and David Lloyd meet in the company’s new facility that includes video conferencing capabilities. Full size
Erez Rousseau, David Lloyd and Greg Stewart convene in a conference room in the company’s redesigned headquarters that was designed as an informal space to foster creativity and collaboration and brainstorming. Full size
Kim Rutledge, Erez Rousseau, Odeta Weinfeld and Sungwoo Kim discuss a project in front of the white wall, the center of the design department. Full size
Lobby Full size
Odeta Weinfeld and Sacha Joseph check outputs from LG&P’s new imagePROGRAF printer. Full size
Rob Gerstner and Chris Kidd examine parts generated by a new rapid prototyping machine which builds concept and working models. Full size
Paramus, N.J. – Following a 43% increase in staff between 2007 and the end of 2009, LG&P found itself busting at the seams in its headquarters location. So when additional space opened up within the larger office building it has called home since 2004, the company seized the opportunity to more than double its space. The agency now conducts business out of a more high-tech, 6,200-square-foot facility.
The new office space (which still featured familiar construction noises at the time of this interview) was designed by the company’s vice president of design, Sacha Joseph. The inspiration behind it, says Rob Gerstner, co-founder and partner, was “not only to be a reflection of our brand, but also to integrate the functions within the organization.”
Employees will now be able to better communicate with team members in its other locations — Toronto and Ningbo, China — through video conferencing capabilities both in Paramus and Ningbo, he says.
Gerstner adds that its Toronto facility is a mirror-image of its headquarters, with full-service design, project management and account management, and its Ningbo manufacturing facility represents part of the company’s unique value proposition.
“This wholly owned foreign enterprise allows us to trade within the country and to go deeper into the vendor community,” he says. Gerstner says he and partner David Lloyd believe the industry is just starting to scratch the surface with global opportunities.
Gerstner is quick to add that seamless communication among the three facilities is paramount. “We don’t have three different design groups; we have one design group in three different locations,” he says. “There’s incredible resource sharing. In addition, the depth, reliability and scale of our manufacturing has been a huge differentiator for us.”
New large-format printers were also purchased for the new space to increase the company’s in-house printing capabilities with a fast turnaround. A rapid prototyping machine builds concept and working models with layered ABS plastic so the design team can test out designs.
Lloyd ultimately believes the new facility will simply help the company “do what we think is unique more efficiently.” One of its greatest points of difference, he says, is its in-house shopper insights and research capabilities, as well as the processes it has in place to integrate those learnings into design, development, and through to execution.
“From the beginning of this company, the premise was that clients needed and wanted fact-based design,” Lloyd says, focusing first on shopper insights. The company has always offered qualitative research services but with recent staff additions, it has entered into “more in-depth, quantitative, large-scale national research initiatives where we can provide advanced analytics and predictive statistical modeling,” he says, similar to what many customers would think of as consumer research services.
The company’s proprietary product, called Designalytics, was designed to increase the probability of success of in-store marketing programs, while eliminating costly and critical mistakes. “How that loops back to our new space and the way Sacha has designed it,” adds Lloyd, “is that it’s about really being efficient and being able to be connected and more focused. The layout of our research staff with our creative team with our project management team is important, just in terms of how people function and do business on a day-to-day basis.”
Creating research-driven proposals has many advantages, Lloyd says. There may be more upfront work, he concedes, but the company has found it is arriving at effective solutions more quickly. “One of the key benefits to the research is also taking the classic subjectivity out of the process,” he says. “Experience tells us that by going about the process in this way saves rework down the road, and when a senior retailer asks why we’re doing something, the client can give them a shopper-based answer.”
The company’s growing design team thrives on the way things are done at LG&P, says Lloyd. “Some of our younger designers, especially, are so eager for these insights, and to understand a consumer challenge and go after tackling solutions, knowing that it is validated through research.”
