Jobs to be Done (#JTBD)

Other Media has developed a reputation as one of the most innovative digital agencies in the UK, with a track record of success and a client list that includes some of the best-known international fashion, sports, and cultural brands. Our approach is based on gaining a deep understanding of our clients through detailed analysis of their data that leads to valuable business insights and actions.

We see common difficulties faced by many brands such as poor customer engagement, slow site speed, low search engine visibility and poor optimisation of social channels. These factors all affect a brand’s ability to drive qualified traffic to a site and convert it into customers and brand ambassadors.

We passionately believe that we should look deeper and address not just the your client needs but, more importantly, your customers’ needs. We do this by using a framework known as “Jobs to be Done” (#JTBD).

Jobs to be Done was introduced by Harvard Business School Professor, Clayton Christensen, in the early 1990s. The idea is deceptively simple. Customers don’t really want products or services, they want to get jobs done. Instead of designing products to meet expected customer needs, Christensen urges us to get out and talk to customers about the jobs they are trying to do and only then to apply this to what gets built.

The theory goes far beyond product and service design, affecting marketing and analytics too. Don’t simply talk about your product’s features but demonstrate clearly how it helps the customer complete their ‘jobs’ whether they be functional, emotional or social. Then use analytics to see how well you are addressing specific jobs and how you could do better in subsequent iterations.

Other Media incorporates JTBD thinking into all projects to great effect. There is a freshness in this approach which breaks away from “me too” feature sets and really starts to listen to actual customers’ needs to get things done. The process starts by interviewing your customers to identify the jobs that they need to get done, which is then cross- referenced with your strategic objectives. These insights can then lead to innovative ways of designing digital solutions that support customers better in what they actually need to do rather than what we may think they need.

This research can be carried out at the start of a project or after an initial launch to enable us to gather feedback on experiences of the new site.