A recipe for success: interview with Grand Prix winner, Without’s Philip Koh

It’s been over two years since Modern Recipe changed the face of Sodexo’s corporate canteens and won the DBA Design Effectiveness Grand Prix Award. Briefly remind us about the original objectives and impact of the project.

Philip Koh: Sodexo provide corporate services to some of the world’s leading businesses. Their B2B approach however, focused on the corporate client, was struggling to connect with staff increasingly distracted by the high-street. As success began with happy customers using the space, we started with the end user: creating a modern, flexible, all-day brand that would connect with today’s professionals. This, in turn, became inherently appealing to forward-thinking facilities managers.

The impact of the new brand was clear. Immediately after launch, we saw a sustained 45% increase in utilisation, 13% increase in average transaction value, and within 6 months, the brand was winning a host of new multi-year, multi-million pound contracts with blue chip corporate clients.

What did the win mean to Without and how has it impacted on your business since?

PK: Without has always been an agency that delivers design not just for style, but for impact. The work we do works – whether for challengers looking to break into new markets, or global brands looking to confound expectations, our thinking solves problems effectively. So the Design Effectiveness Awards, with its panel of business experts, has always been one of the most important for us. And to win the Grand Prix – it’s something we’re very proud of. 

After the award win, it is clear that we’re having much deeper, strategic conversations with potential clients – the credibility that the award bestows has been really helpful in this regard.

Anecdotally, we know that clients do look at award lists for reassurance, and for us, this award is one of the best at establishing the value of our work.  

And because this is an award for the client as much as it is for the agency, we’ve seen a positive impact within the client organisation itself. A pride and confidence in the new brand, greater commitment to its growth, and much deserved recognition for the forward-looking individuals who took the bold decisions.    

Modern Recipe has gone from strength-to-strength. Bring us up to speed on recent developments? 

PK: Our original brief was to reimagine corporate catering and re-establish canteens as vibrant, valuable assets for Sodexo’s UK market. But the result, Modern Recipe, has been so successful in the UK that it’s been quickly adapted for the US market. With Sodexo’s North American team, we’re developing and evolving the brand to address not just the cultural nuances of the American audience, but to retool the brand kit to address wider markets – from corporate, to university and healthcare sectors. It’s now being rolled out across 300 client sites in the US – at a pace we could barely have imagined when we started the project.

In your view, how has entering and winning in the Design Effectiveness Awards influenced this success and your relationship with Sodexo? 

PK: It’s worth re-emphasising that the DBA Design Effectiveness Award is a joint award, for both client and agency. Entry into the award is itself a joint effort, and a successful entry requires collaboration. Simply making an entry together is a commitment to a deeper relationship, trust, and alignment with the client’s ambitions and goals. 

We’ve found that in entering and winning the award, we’ve demonstrated our focus on our client’s success, and this has helped build trust and credibility across their organisation. It’s opened doors to new conversations and new projects, one of which, a new product tackling the challenge of nutrition in schools, we hope will be a DBA Design Effectiveness Award winner of the future!   

Has it impacted the way you work with other clients too? 

PK: We’ve always approached projects with our clients’ goals front and centre, and our strategic and design processes have been honed over the years to focus on effectively harnessing creativity to deliver commercial outcomes. What the DBA award has taught us, is how to better track, measure and account for that success. It’s a long-term way of thinking with which we approach every client project. 

Also, the rigour with which the tracking, measuring and accounting is done is critical in demonstrating the value that design brings, and that can only be a good thing for our industry. Design is often undervalued – creativity isn’t easily accounted for in a budget line – so the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards plays a really important role.       

Modern Recipe | Sodexo and Without | 2021 Grand Prix and Gold winner

Entering the 2024 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards

About Without

Without is a brand design studio helping pioneers define their difference. Founded by a historian and an engineer, Without understands the power of difference to defy, define and create categories. Since 2005 Without have helped beloved brands like Third Space, Savoir and Caravan to grow, build community and make life better, and in 2021 won the highest recognition of design effectiveness – the DBA Effectiveness Grand Prix.