We knew from the start that we weren’t looking for a short-term vendor relationship. Rather, we were looking for a strategic partner—a company we could view as our extended team. BB originally caught our attention through the portfolio work they have on Dribbble. At the end of the day, we eat with our eyes first, so the visual output was extremely important, and the work they displayed made us hungry!

As everyone knows, even though it looks good, doesn’t mean it tastes good; so the next step was gaining a better understanding of their processes and getting a feel for their team. We quickly realized they had all the right ingredients.

“BB’s approach to understanding what we do, how we do it, and what makes us different—made all the difference.”

Knowing that BB had the processes in place to create seamless communication was a huge differentiator. There’s nothing worse than getting into a project and not having access to the subject matter expert who is creating the deliverable.

“With BB, not only do you get a top-tier Project Manager, but you also get access to each subject matter expert as you progress through each asset. It saves time and energy, and honestly, creates a better product.”

Here’s a quick breakdown of what we’re referring to: 

Project Management is the relationship and glue that sets the tone and creates the foundation for the project pace and every interaction. Our experience with our BB PM has been phenomenal. We feel taken care of, heard, and like a priority. Communication is daily, we interact and chat with our PM just as much as any other internal eOne team member.

As for the subject matter experts, BB has many of them, and they are all extremely responsive. Imagine having access to the right talent for the project at hand. Not only do you know you’re going to get a great result, but you can chat directly with them as questions and ideas arise. This saves time and fosters organic collaboration.

We had reservations about the time zone difference. We felt a bit uncertain going into the partnership around efficiencies and possible lost time.

“It wasn’t but weeks into the initial project we started to realize [the time zone difference] was a superpower. Every day our team starts the day with a win!”

We wake up to the work that the BB team has completed. As we start our day, they are wrapping up, and that makes for the perfect overlap window… and that is where even more magic happens. We use this time to jump on calls, answer questions, etc. It’s incredibly powerful to have a short period of time that’s dedicated to live communication. By the time they sunset their day, we have the rest of the day to focus on the progress we need to make to keep things moving. Essentially, our team is making progress almost 24/7, and we are each carrying a bit of the load, so not only does it feel manageable, it feels energizing.

As a company looking to move quickly on every initiative, it was tempting to want to skip the first few phases (research, exploration, analysis, etc.); but knowing that we were truly looking for outputs that didn’t require a “refresh” in a year or so, we opted for the journey that would set us up for scalable success.

“It’s easy to say now that we’ve been through it, the research and analysis phase was absolutely worth it. Not only did it make us feel comfortable that BB understood us, but it was also key in building trust.”

Why? Because we knew that BB could truly be a strategic partner without us having to hold their hand. Knowing we went through comprehensive research meant their team could bring new ideas and perspectives to the table. Thus, adding value in ways we hadn’t explored. 

It was also extremely helpful to have a blueprint of our target market, a kind of “documentation” of sorts. Internally we always talk about our partners, customers, and solutions, but it was extremely valuable to document it and have a playbook to refer back to. It has also been helpful in our onboarding efforts, it provides insight and context to new team members.
The beginning of the project might move a bit slower than you hoped, but the efficiencies and value it adds in the long run are worth it.

“Pivoting is a critical skill in any project; without that ability, the project is bound to be a circus. Suffice it to say the BB team has a Master’s in juggling!”

At any given time, we were working on a handful of initiatives—and those initiatives involved numerous team members on both sides (eOne and BB). 

After starting a project we would often find ourselves needing to make amendments to what we had set out to accomplish. Whether it was an eOne request because our requirements changed, or an idea the BB team brought to the table—they were always willing to talk through and drive every change home.

Where this makes the biggest mark is really in the 40,000 ft view—meaning, all the changes could have had us spinning in indecision, but BB made it comfortable to talk through and quickly create a plan to keep moving forward. What would have otherwise been numerous hurdles, turned into creative pivots with positive unexpected outcomes.

When you have a well-oiled machine, you don’t turn it off! We had created such a great relationship and the work BB delivered continuously spoke for itself, so it was a no-brainer to continue to evolve our collaboration. Their team of subject matter experts is extremely talented so as our needs continued to grow outside of the website, we knew they had our back in helping us achieve great results in creating new assets. It’s been fun to watch our collateral ecosystem rapidly grow, and the best part is, it has been invaluable to our sales team.

Looking back, we’d change how slow we moved internally. At the start, we felt there could have been a bit more urgency on our part to make decisions, set meetings up, etc. We might also have benefited from a few more team meetings during the branding phase.

As we’ve started to get into the various projects outside of the branding and website wheelhouse, perhaps we could work on providing a bit more clarity given the new project landscapes (as they are new to us).

But in all honesty, what we’ve accomplished in this partnership to date has been extremely critical in this time of growth for eOne… and we look forward to continuing to tackle future projects together.