Advertising Innovation

In Q1 of 2017 I planned and managed a product innovation project for 'Ve Interactive's' advertising division. Using a Design Sprint I brought together key stakeholders to answer the question "How might we create better experiences for online customers with VeAds?". Following a two day workshop, two design concepts were prototyped and presented to the division's committee.

Objectives

Initial stakeholder interviews and user research confirmed the suspicion that most people's experience with online ads is pretty negative. There was an opportunity to improve advert UX and performance. My task was to develop new and innovative concepts for Ve's advertising offering that achieved this. In addition if these concepts were to become anything more than concepts they would need to be implemented and tested with real clients. This process would require collaboration with multiple departments across the business. To make this easier it was important to get buy-in from those department right at the beginning.

Strategy

In order to achieve buy-in and harness existing knowledge within the business, I invited 7 key stakeholders to join me for a 2 day Design Sprint. The goal of this Sprint was to answer the question "How might we create better experiences for online customers with VeAds?". In advance of the Sprint I conducted my own user research around online shopping and advertising. This research informed a Sprint Map which we used throughout the workshop. During the sprint we interviewed 3 experts, presented 22 inspiring product demos, sketched many iterations and ended up with 7 new product concepts. 2 of these concepts were developed into prototypes.

Outcomes

Following the Sprint I presented the prototypes to the advertising division committee which included several c-level members of staff. At the end of the concept presentation a c-level officer asked “So why have we done this?”. Before I had a chance to respond, one of the workshop participants chimed in and convinced him of the benefits. For me this interaction prooved the advantages of taking the collaborative approach to design, embodied in the Design Sprint.

Prototypes

Below you can see several screens from the AdProfile prototype I produced using Sketch and InVision. This was the first of two concepts developed following the Design Sprint. The service's proposition was user empowerment, through transparency and control. The idea was to present internet users with the existing profile we had developed (based on their browsing history) to represent their online interests and favorite brands. The service would allow users to update and refine this profile in order to be presented with relevent adverts. People would see adverts they wanted to see and advertisers would be reaching a increasingly relevant audience.

The second concept developed from the Design Sprint can be seen below. The idea was inspired by the discovery feed on Tinder. Users would be presented with a stack of products to review and feedback their preferences. This data would then inform a more refined idea of the types of products a user might be interested in. The concept also solved the common problem of users being re-targeted repeatedly with products they had already bought. Once a user had hit the cross mark on a product they wouldn't see it again. The concept incorporated our on-site product VePanel, presenting a returning user with the products they had shown interest in via the advert, making the journey to purchase a bit smoother.