Creative Group Launching an innovative digital product to disrupt the billion-dollar incentives industry

As a veteran of the incentives industry, Creative Group is an expert at driving behavior change through meaningful rewards and thoughtful communication.

Client Challenge

They wanted to transform their incentives expertise into an industry-disrupting digital product, and they needed a strategic partner to help them bring this ambitious vision to life. Aware of our background in custom business app development for companies in the Chicago area, they reached out to Highland for help.

Our Approach

Research

Highland and Creative Group used a design thinking workshop to understand the unique needs the product would address. This work heavily influenced the product roadmap, which provided an ongoing compass throughout the project to help the team make project decisions that prioritized users.

Design

Creative Group was able to imagine many complex solutions and user scenarios, and Highland helped distill that complexity into a core set of features and must-haves that would meet the needs of a majority of users. Instead of a knee-jerk "yes" to new ideas, we met Creative Group's suggestions with thoughtful feedback and critical questions that kept the team focused on providing business value.

Build

Highland and Creative Group worked together to develop a product that designs and manages customized marketing solutions for Creative Group's incentives clients. Solutions can be customized to the individual company running the incentive program, providing unmatched flexibility compared to other similar products in the market.

The mobile-first product design helped Creative Group's solution leap past competitors, whose tools were built exclusively for desktop users. Everything on the site works perfectly in a mobile setting and is built from a single code base, helping the development team bring new solutions to production at a faster pace.

People-First Product Development

Highland's development team was adamant about standing up for the user and prioritizing their top tasks throughout the project. This resulted in a custom mobile app that focuses on adoption and ease of use over busy branding or distracting marketing tactics.

Strategic Partnership

Creative Group hired Highland in part because of our ability to push back with candor and respect when needed. The experts at Creative Group brought decades of industry experience to the project, which paired well with Highland's lean and MVP approach to product design.