Toronto brand strategy and design agency Pilot PMR is launching a subscription design-on-demand service offering what it describes as a “reliable, scalable, and cost-efficient” design solution.
Pilot PMR founder and CEO David Doze said that Propeller is designed to enable clients to take on more ambitious design projects without disrupting their operations. “In essence, clients get an in-house design team without incurring additional overhead,” he said.
Propeller has been built to provide what Doze described as “frictionless delivery” of various capabilities, including advertising, landing pages, email campaigns, social media, illustrations, and presentations.
While there are international subscription-on-demand services such as Superside and Design Pickle, Doze said the model is not something that’s particularly prevalent in the Canadian marketplace.
In development for more than a year, Propeller is designed to leapfrog off Pilot PMR’s expertise in brand strategy and UX. “We want to maintain a lively, energetic design studio as a complement to that,” said Doze.
The service is expected to appeal primarily to new clients, particularly enterprise clients in sectors such as financial services, technology, healthcare, and education. The key, said Doze, is that they be “established organizations” that already have a firm grasp on their brand, their tone of voice, etc.
“It’s not a service for somebody who’s trying to figure it out,” he said. “We’re happy to help organizations figure themselves out, but that’s Pilot’s business. If you don’t know how you sound or what you look like, you probably need to do [that] first and then you’re prepared to take on this service.”
Doze said that Propeller is capable of providing an “agency standard” calibre of work while addressing issues common to the freelance world, such as fluctuations in the quality of work and price, to less obvious issues like missing time for health or personal reasons.
“If you are an existing organization…and you have design needs, instead of going into scoping and pricing and having a full-service relationship, you’re entering into a trusted relationship with a brand that’s been around for 20 years and delivers a discrete base of needs-based services,” he said.
After clients select a plan and subscription term, Pilot PMR assembles a dedicated team of creatives and project managers. A typical Propeller team will include a creative director, project manager, and one or more designers. Plans start at a base cost of $4,000 per month, said Doze.
The Propeller name is a natural extension of the Pilot PMR name, while also connoting energy, and forward movement, said Doze.
“I fundamentally believe in the future of subscription, in the current economic environment and beyond, where organizations are trying to have predictability,” said Doze. “It’s very challenging in the marketing space, when you’re buying custom services, to contain costs and scope.”
