American Big 4 Talent and Media Agency
12 weeks
Lead Designer
Figma, Figjam
I worked with 2 senior management consultants who helped inform the business strategy for this concept.
The name of this client and further details were omitted for confidentiality purposes.
Our client is a Hollywood based talent agency that represents top artists, actors, athletes and influencers. Some talent they represent include Taylor Swift, Adele, and Serena Williams just to name a few!
Our client’s desire is to be the top talent agency in the market. That means having having top-tier talent as clients, and booking them on profitable and high-profile project opportunities.
In order to do this, they need a platform that helps agents and assistants seamlessly book celebrity clients onto project opportunities and supports all their daily interactions. Some of the key business metrics this platform would address include:
Our platform’s aim is to help talent agents book clients faster by automating the submission, negotiations, and approval process.
It was crucial to decrease the collective time spent (Customer Effort Score) using the current tools with our platform. Agents spend unecessary time switching between disparate tools.
The more celebrity clients that are assigned to projects, means that the platform is active and generating sales.
My task was to design complete new mobile talent management platform concept
that would support the booking process of celebrity clients onto projects.
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We collaboratively identified Hollywood agents and assistants as the primary users of the platform.
*As this work was for a proposal to the client to win a longer term project, we were unable to have interviews with our client’s agents and assistants. Interviews were conducted with external agents and assistants in the industry below.
Manage their celebrity clients and ensure they are booked on projects
Quickly identify project opportunities
Easily contact and communicate with contacts within their own and their client’s network
Conduct administrative tasks to equip the agents they support
Capture celebrity client information to better understand, their needs
Research upcoming project opportunities
Collect documents and data for the booking process
With a high-level persona in place, we wanted to understand the general shape of the booking process for agents and advisors which is as follows:
Agents and assistants need to know their clients schedule and preferences in order to find the right project opportunities.
Agents and assistants need to research suitable opportunities, as much of it can be through word of mouth, or other sources.
Agents and assistants will submit clients to a project and negotiate their contract terms.
At this point, the agent and assistant perform the same process for other celebrity clients to create a consistent pipeline of work for them.
“How might we optimize the talent management process for agents and assistants"?
To better develop a concept that addressed the pain points and the evolving needs of our client, we interviewed former celebrity agents who talked about their needs on the job, how they like to best serve their celebrity clients, and the changing landscape of talent managment.
“Talent used to want Oscars, now they want IPOs"
Agents want to level up their celebrity clients and help their business ventures through bookings and deals. Celebrity clients used to want awards for acting or music, but now they want to build and launch businesses.
The agent, and talent manager roles are evolving into super-roles that can seek and secure employment for celebrity clients and shape the image and progression of their career. This means they have much more to manage and be responsible for.
Though we assumed an agent’s schedule was busy, it was confirmed though the interviews that they are always on, all the time. Having a single view of their tasks, schedules, and clients, was paramount.
Agents and assistants will no longer scramble to gather intel on an upcoming project across different tools. Crucial documents and information will not be lost to ubiquitous communications.
Assistants are relieved of collecting disparate information as all relevant attachments, information, and contacts are captured in one place.
Agents have better coordination and reduced submission conflicts by seeing  “Other Submissions”.
Contacts such as other agents or hiring managers are shown to get a holistic view of who is involved.
Agents and assistants are constantly hustling to find business and PR opportunities for their celebrity clients. Agents want to ensure that their celebrity clients are booked, and that the projects they are pursuing suit their celebrity clients needs at a click of a button.
A universal search is anchored to the top of the UI at all times, to search clients, projects, or conversations.
Client cards in the Client Roster highlight the status and key details of the celebrity client so it’s clear what action is required for the agent or assistant.
Agents can view a celebrity client’s network at their fingertips whether internal (a part of the agency) or external.
Getting connected and receiving an approval from a celebrity client’s core contacts for a project is crucial to accelerate the booking process.
My design and prototype led to a pitch that won a
‍$6 million dollar project to build the
client management platform.
