Black Friday
COMPANY
Lowe's
ROLE
Design Lead
SUMMARY
Lowe's Black Friday campaign, similar to other eCommerce sites, is the largest earning and most significant annual effort for the company. I was lead over Lowe's largest team of designers (Promotions and Marketing) to guide design, strategy and execution for web, mobile and email channels in connection with omni-channel marketing.
Reduce design drift across deliverables & platforms
Alleviate designer burnout
Project Overview
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Marketing events such as Black Friday produced high stress environments with quality issues for the designs, creative alignment, and annual traffic related blackouts of the website.
GOALS
1
Better creative alignment with omni-channel experiences
3
2
Anticipate & solution for high traffic issues
4
Sketch Library Overview
Design Library
SOLVING: DESIGN DRIFT + DESIGNER BURNOUT
I lead the collaboration of a Sketch Library of templates and symbols with placeholder text for different offers. Previous years of the event had shared design files that resulted in risk of inconsistencies across the event. It successfully eliminated design drift and cut down production time to a fraction of previous years, alleviating with burnout and designer workload.
Black Friday Ad Circulation
Omni-Channel Design
SOLVING: CREATIVE ALIGNMENT TO PRINT
Several issues with the outside marketing and branding created for events at Lowe's such as Black Friday included a lack of consideration for the digital medium, ADA color contrast issues and a cluttered treatment that could not carry over as well to web, mobile or email. We worked on leveraging the customer experience in-store in an elevated and adapted version online.
Lowe's Weekly Ad circulation is one of the companies oldest marketing staples and subsequently its branding and layout is a recognizable extension of the company to the customer. We didn't want the digital experience to be the same as a physical medium, but we wanted it to feel like a version of the same event.
IN-STORE
The website drives a number of the in-store sales, especially for an event like Black Friday. We wanted the digital branding and treatments to echo some of the more recognizable design elements in store to maintain holistic omni-channel branding.
In-Store Signage
Optimized for Traffic
DIGITAL
SUPPORT
We supported heavier pressure testing and optimized image sizing and use of live text to reduce to load time of the site. We worked closely with development to ensure the UX assets would deliver as intended, even on heavier traffic times for the event.
In addition to increased technical support, the design team created a backlog for item sales or updates based on competitor activity, we "war gamed" several scenarios and created the assets for web updates to be ready, coded and easily implemented without fire drills for designers.
Takeaways
RESULTS
While this event was the largest and just one of many, the year I lead the Promotions & Marketing UX team Lowe's saw a 135% increase in digital sales than the previous year in comparison to a 4% overall sales increase across the company. Lowe's was named #21 in Internet Retailer's 2017 Top 1000 report and received their Internet Retailer of the Year award of excellence.
IMPACT
The success of Lowe's Black Friday campaign across digital channels created more attention to the website as a source of revenue. The UX team continue to grow with increased investment from Lowe's in their digital presence and identity with recognition from leadership in its value.
APPLIANCES
Lowe's
EXHIBIT PUBLICATION
Smithsonian