From Proposal to Project.

From Prosposal to Project.
By Derek Desormeaux

Mission Statement:
Championing Brands
with a Sound Strategy,
so they can realize
their ambitions.

3
Client Overview:
Brief:
Barnes & Noble, Inc., is an American bookseller. It is
a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the
largest number of retail outlets in the United States.
As of March 7, 2019, the company operates 627 re-
tail stores in all 50 U.S. states. In August 2019, Elliott
Management Corporation acquired the company.
Why did they contact us?
Company is seeking design, but don’t know where
to expand there resources.
Revenue is dropping and is in need of market action.
Last design expense in didn’t move any desired
business metrics.
Our mission is to operate the best specialty retail busi-
ness in America, regardless of the product we sell. Because
the product we sell is books, our aspirations must be con-
sistent with the promise and the ideals of the volumes
which line our shelves. - Barnes & Noble Mission Statement

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Brand Strategist.
What I offer?
Job Description:
A strategist will develop positioning, recommendations,
guide market research analysis and define brand
elements and tone through analysis of current market
data and trends.
Brand Strategy
Positioning, Mission, Brand Direction, User Personas.
Project + Creative Strategy
Personas, UX, Creative Brief, Marketing, Content Strategy.
Delieverables
Graphic Design, Logos, Website, Ect.)
Seen by Customer/Client
Seen by Business
Why do strategists make a difference?
The current worldwide marketplace is being constantly
cluttered by the new and old business. With this being
the current state it’s hard for any business to attract
and even maintain business.
What a strategist does is offer clarity. Often times a
brand will be in need of positioning or a refresh on
its approach to its customers. After this is done what
deliverables to create become more clear and when
executed more valuable long-term.

Maximizes ROI (Delieverables, Marketing, and Employee’s)
Bring Clarity to Business
Differentiates from Competition
Benefits:

The Two Phases:
Strategy
Developement
Design
Execution

7
Strategy Development:
Note: Not every stage will be used
because each client is different and
has different needs.
Goals
Schedule
Brand Attributes
Archetypes + Short
write up
Mission Statement
Positioning Statement
Messaging Examples
Competitor Analysis
Customer Persona(s)
Customer Journey
Messaging examples
for each stage of the
Customer Journey
Look and Feel
Timeline
Priorities

8
Goals & Schedule:
Goals:
Company is seeking design, but don’t know where to
expand their resources.
Revenue is dropping and is in need of market action.
The last design expense didn’t move any desired metrics.
Additional Insights:
Community Engagement was down.
The business model hasn’t seen any new opportunity for
new types of growth.
Wants an overall increase in Brand Engagement.
Feeling pressure from competitors to change.
Wants younger customers.
Schedule:
Barnes&Noble’s Strategy Development
Brand Attributes, and Archetypes.
Positioning Statement and Messaging Examples.
Competitor Analysis and Brand Audit.
Persona’s and and Customer Journey.
Messaging examples from each stage & Look and Feel.
Project Timeline and Priorities.

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Brand Attributes, and Archetypes:
ATTRIBUTES
Inviting:
Offering the promise of an attractive or
enjoyable experience.
Helpful:
Giving or ready to give help and/or useful.
Warm:
Having, showing, or expressive of enthusiasm,
affection, or kindness
Creative:
Relating to or involving the imagination or original
ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.
Inspirational:
Providing or showing creative or spiritual inspiration.
ARCHETYPES
Storyteller:
Connects people through shared human experience,
and unleashes powerful emotions.
Lover:
Possesses an unbridled appreciation for affection and
beauty. Showing care and effort in the little things to
provide a warm experience.
Why are Archetypes useful?
Archetypes are an unconscious psychological set of
narrative patterns that have been discovered in every
society. Any brand that can identify which Archetype
it is allows that brand to better serve and stick in the
mind of its customers.

Brand Attributes, and Archetypes:
Any brand that can identify
which Archetype it is
allows that brand to better
serve and stick in the mind
of its customers.

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Positioning Statement and Messaging:
Positioning Statment:
For young people, Barnes & Noble is the only bookstore
that creates an inviting reading community so they can
create emotional connections because Barnes & Noble
wants people to love books.
How it works:
Writing a positioning statement helps focus on creative
development, increase viable options that are
on brand, on strategy, and message
This then leads to possible concept development for
the brand’s needs. The goal is to be on tone from the
Attributes and remember how you are operating
within the identified archetypes.
Concept for Messaging:
The concept was to focus on the culture of reading
books and being a book person. Highlighting the fun
quirks along with the beliefs of book readers creates
a sense of community.
Examples:
If you’re reading no one can call you a procastinator.
Where it’s normal to mourn about fiction characters.
For people who would rather read about fictional
people’s problems.
For book people.

12
Competitors Analysis:
Amazon:
Amazon is a huge competitor for Barnes and Noble
and they used to start only selling books but have ex-
panded into this online ordering empire. This has given
them a huge advantage over Barnes & Noble because
they have the capital to compete over price. The next
factor is they compete against the comfort factor by
allowing people to order at home. Amazon does fall
flat in that they don’t have a main store location for
people to form a community around them besides on-
line. They also fall flat in that you will have to wait for
your product, but usually prices make up for this factor.
Our vision is to be Earth’s most customer-centric
company; to build a place where people can
come to find and discover anything they might want
to buy online.-Amazon’s Mission Statement
Books-a-Million:
They are the second largest bookstore chain in the
USA. They have several different names Books-A-Mil-
lion, Bookland, Books & Company, and 2nd & Charles.
They total in 260 stores in 32 states and are the real
close competition Barnes & Noble has besides smaller
individual bookstores. They fall flat when it comes to
scale in comparison to Barnes & Noble and they also
seem to be trying to copy B&N when it comes to how
they have organized their business.
Where B&N attracts the more hipster, mature
community I feel B.A.M attracts more average blue
collar readers. The coffee place inside is called
Joe Muggs if that puts everything into perspective.
It works like the contrast between Starbucks and
Dunkin’ Donuts

13
Brand Audit:
Strengths:
Strong in-store experience.
Well known brand.
Has a Brand Culture.
Weaknesses:
Weak againsts online competitors.
Can be beat one price.
Extremely specialized type of store.
Analysis:
Marketing reports show that the likelyhood of a
purchase increases when the intended audience
is in the store. This also plays the clients advantage
because with thier particular brand that is a strength.
Insight: It’s better to compete where other
competitors cannot. If the client wants more
teens to buy then getting them in-store is going
to be the main communication objective.

14
Tom R.
Persona
Bio:
16-18 years old.
In highschool,
works part-time.
Income $12,000 - $14,000
Painpoints:
Transportation.
Income.
Limited Free-Time.
Preffered Outcomes:
Community.
Enjoys reading more.
Meets new people.
How did he find us?
Online,
Seen at local Mall,
Social Media
And Brand Influence.
Brand Benefits:
Appeals to Community.
Self Actualized by
reading more.
Joins new Social Circle.
Insight: B&N can appeal to a teenage audience by
using their inherent brand attribute of community.
This creates the emotional benefit of being apart of
a group and this particular benefit attracts teenagers
because they are still psychologically trying to frame
themselve within the social hierarchy.

Customer Journey:
Awareness
Mass, OOH, TV, Radio, Print
Research
Digital, POS, Mobile, DR-Print, TV
Engagement
Digital, POS
Convert
Digital, POS, Mobile
Print (DM)
Post Purchase
Digital, POS, Mobile
Print (DM)
Advocacy
Digital, WOM
Hanging out at after school with
nothing to do.
See’s Barnes and Noble on Social
Media. (Instagram, Twitter, ect.)
Decides to go to mall. Then walk in
the store.
Enjoys in-store experiences because
of Inclusionary Brand Elements
(signage, uniforms products)
Buys Product and gets take-home
promotional items. (Bags, Buttons,
Bookmarks, ect.)
Posts about EXP on Social Media or
engages more.

16
Look and Feel:
Visual Insight:
This Moodboard was
meant to convey several
Brand Attributes as well
appeal to the archetypes.
Inviting, Warm Inspirational,
Creative, and Friendly.
Being Type-focused was
the decision because
it takes into account the
storyteller’s archetype
without being too blunt.

Priorities:
Goals:
Generate more In-Store Traffic and
Brand Engagement to a younger audience.
Delieverables:
Social Media, In-Store Signage,
and Promotional Items.

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The Brief:
Project: Barnes&Noble Ad Campaign
Summary:
After doing some research on my target demograpic
(Teens ages 16-18) along with competitive research
(Books-A-Million & Amazon) it was decided to focus on
where the main competition cannot compete (In-store).
Teens and other customers are more likely to buy once
in-store, and that meant doubling down on Barnes &
Nobles strength of a great shopping experience.
Audience:
Teenagers ages 16-18. In highschool, work part-time.
Income $12,000 - $14,000
Positioning Statement:
For young people, Barnes & Noble is the only bookstore
that creates an inviting reading community so they can
create emotional connections because Barnes & Noble
wants people to love books.
Communication Objective:
To generate more in-store traffic and overall brand
engaement amongst a younger demographic.
Brand Attributes:
Inviting, Warm Inspirational, Creative, and Friendly.
Medai:
(Print) Posters
(Social Media) Twitter & Instagram Post
(Promotional) Bookmarks and Bags
The Concept:
The concept was to focus on the culture of reading
books and being a book person. Highlighting the fun
quirks along with the beliefs of book readers creates
a sense of community.

Iterate Phase II:
Stage 1 Stage 2
In this phase I directly go back and fourth between
the Moodboard and the selected direction. In this
process its all about taking away what works, and
keeping what can be broadly applied.

23
Iterate Phase II:
Once the Visual Direction
has been selected it’s
now about applying
the visual language and
messaging acrosss the
targeted media.

24
Visualized User Journey:
Awareness:
See’s Barnes and Noble
on Social Media.
(Instagram, Twitter, ect.)
Twitter and Instagram
were selected because
they have the highest user
engagement amongst the
target audience.

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Engagement:
Enjoys in-store experiences
because of Inclusionary
Brand Elements (signage,
uniforms products)
In-Store Signs were
selected the goal was
to make exploring the
store more engaging by
creating surprises.

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Engagement:
Enjoys in-store experienc-
es because of Inclusion-
ary Brand Elements (sig-
nage, uniforms products)
In-Store Signs were
selected because they
make exploring the store
more engaging by
creating surprises.

27
Engagement:
Enjoys in-store experiences
because of Inclusionary
Brand Elements (signage,
uniforms products)
In-Store Signs were
selected because they
make exploring the store
more engaging by
creating surprises.

28
Post-Purchase:
Buys Product and gets
take-home promotional
items. (Bag, & Bookmark)
The Promotional Items were
contextually picked because
of what B&N is. They were
also selected because of
their reusability.

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The Campaign:
This campaign works because it
has consistency and a system. It
also is effective for another reason.
It remphasizes that brands promise
to its customers. This solution
created more brand loyalty and
future sales.

In Conclusion:
Design without Strategy has no
purpose in the long term. Brand
strategy aligns the Brands position
and goals to the current market.
This creates more cost effective
and long term solutions for how
the brand communicates.

From Proposal to Project.

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