Product Optimization
From a creative and content strategy POV
I led a full digital creative and content rebrand for 100+ product assortment. The goal was to humanize the brand and product experience across all touchpoints. This involved defining the narrative, modernizing the aesthetics, evolving the product copy and elevating the product positioning through story.
Throughout this project, I established the look/tone/feel and directed all efforts of the in-house studio team in carrying out the creative objectives that supported digital marketing, advertising and brand image mandates. I built the go-forward messaging framework and wrote all of the product copy for marketing and advertising.
Additionally, I implemented a robust A+ content strategy to tell even better product stories across the digital ecosystem. This included optimizing the product and landing page experiences on both desktop and mobile.
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Finally, I renamed each product within the full assortment and categorized the products into specific collections for simplicity.
Project Background
For eBags, one of the main objectives was to expedite the trajectory of the private label business and double its revenue within the next few years. In order to do that, the eBags Product Development team implemented a complex value engineer project to save costs and optimize the existing product assortment. This consisted of deep-diving into consumer insights at the product level to better understand what features our customers cared about and which they didn’t.
In short, the team was able to cut costs by removing over-engineered features that weren’t adding any value to the end-user while alternatively, improving existing features in response to specific customer feedback.
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Once the revised changes for each product were underway, the next step was to devise and execute a plan for updating the creative and content across the full digital ecosystem—that's where I come in.
Some Additional Background
At this point and time, the brand didn't have any specific standards, guidelines or overarching strategy—and the brand's product imagery was old and outdated and lacked human connection. Because every thumbnail image for every product needed to be updated digitally for accuracy, there was a huge opportunity for reinventing the brand’s look/tone/feel.
As the Brand’s Creative and Content Strategist, this was the prime time to modernize the aesthetics and elevate the copy strategy to attract a wider audience. As the story goes, the more engaging the creative and content, the better the conversion and higher lifetime value.
The Challenge
We had to take a very calculated phased approach in rolling this out because not all products were going to hit the warehouse at the same time. So, everything needed to align in order to ensure a consistent customer experience from purchasing to receiving.
Furthermore, ebags.com was a marketplace consisting of more than 800 brands which meant the private label was not the sole focus of the business—or more specific, the in-house studio team had several priorities for various brands, site campaigns and the like.
The Creative Strategy
My goal was to show and tell each products’ unique features through relatable visuals and messaging while keeping the strategy consistent across the full assortment.
I partnered with the photography team on an exploratory project and had them test elements such as drops shadows, hard/soft lighting, with/without model, angles, and various prop-styling. Once we found the sweet spot and stakeholder alignment was achieved, we moved into the creative production phases.
I built a task calendar through AirTable and assigned roles and responsibilities to a team of 3. I managed each asset from end to end and streamlined production practices which nearly tripled creative output.
The Copy Strategy
The content was outdated, confusing and unrelatable. Additionally, the existing copy was inconsistent across the assortment and across channels. My goal was to help consumers more easily shop for a bag or luggage item digitally by clearly communicating how eBags' products were going to meet their needs and solve their problems.
The Roadmap to Success
I broke down the necessities of each task, created timelines, assigned roles, achieved stakeholder alignment and kept everyone and every product on track through the end ensuring all deadlines were met. This included:
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Directing photography, building creative production workflows and streamlining processes
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End to end asset planning, management and organization
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Liason between all teams providing updates, cross-functional calendar and checklist for mandatory channel-wide updates
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- Monitoring cross-functional progress ensuring all deadlines were met
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Writing/editing and updating all copy including product features, descriptions, site/marketing placements, ad campaigns, etc.
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Managing PR comms strategy and attending NYC desk-tours to advocate for the brand and its newest customer-driven product updates​
PR, Customer Care and Crisis Management
I worked closely with the product and merchandising team to create scripts that clearly communicated each product's unique changes—and with a positive spin. This provided helpful talking points for the PR and customer care teams.
For example, "Due to customer feedback, we removed XYZ feature to be 25% lighter."
The Result
In less than 8 weeks, we created an entirely new digital asset library with approved imagery for each product. This consisted of more than 1000 now on-brand images. We updated all creative and copy within ad campaigns, site merchandising, email automation and partner brands such as Amazon, eBay and Brad's Deals.
With the new approach to creative direction and brand messaging, we were able to establish a foundation of brand cohesion cross-functionally which helped create a consistent consumer experience throughout the entire loop of their journey.
Plus, product page conversions increased month over month and both paid and free marketing channels saw major improvements in both CTR and CVR.
Elevating the Product Photography
Humanizing the product experience
Before, the imagery lacked human-centricity and made the product appear as if it were floating in space and felt unenticing. By giving the product a much-needed facelift with some fancy angles, lighting and propping, we were able to better connect with our audience and in turn, drive more conversion.
Before
After
Swipe to see additional examples of elevated product photography —>
Simplifying the Product Features & Descriptions
Short and to the point
When rewriting the product features, I took a customer-first approach and removed the fluff and complicated technical terms. This helped with consolidation, prioritization and consistency across the assortment.
Before
After
A+ Product Page Content Examples
I conducted competitive research to determine the best customer experience, led the wireframing, content strategy, creative strategy and wrote all of the copy below.
Renaming Products
The name of the game
The goal was simplification and consolidation. The intent was to create a better user experience through easier navigation and quick identification. Thus, I created a naming architecture system that was easy to implement across the brand and future product development.
