Putting the Pieces Together

One of my first marketing collaborations at Nest was the closing package. As with nearly all of our projects, the inspiration for a closing table gift came from one of our Nest agents who was looking for a way to acknowledge the significance of reaching the closing table in the home buying journey and provide a takeaway.

At the closing table, a client can sign more than 50 documents and is usually given a set of keys to their new home. In a team brainstorming session, it quickly became clear that both a keychain and a pen would be valuable takeaways to provide at this moment.

From there the question became, how can we provide both of these pieces together in an intentional way? A project that asks both how does it look and what does it do?! I’m all in. Coming from a fine arts and design background, form and function are in my wheelhouse. My instinct is to draw, fold, cut, repeat, so I grabbed my X-Acto knife to start modeling what would eventually be our vessel.

After many mock-ups and lots of tinkering, we were able to settle on a die cut packaging concept that could house both the pen and keychain. From here, Design and Content then took the packaging and elevated it with thoughtful messaging and cheerful design to celebrate this hard-earned milestone.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that an enormous part of my job is just this, putting the pieces together. Asking questions, like how does this material fit into a client’s buying or selling journey, how does this programming or material fit into an agent’s marketing toolkit, or simply how does this pen fit together with a keychain? In the end, it’s important that all of the pieces come together, big and small.