Blanco
Strategy and responsive ecommerce design for the multi-national fashion brand based in Madrid.
A high street staple. But Blanco was struggling to compete, made worse with Zara’s continued success. Despite a rich heritage, the brand lost its personality and confidence, relying on a discount culture to keep customers happy.
Brand repositioning. We were part of movement to move Blanco away from being a no-frills retailer and become more distinctive, luxurious, and profitable.
Extensive ecommerce design, strategy, and consultation. We joined the team in Madrid to develop a whole new digital store, improve marketing, and drive sales.
brand experience
Re-establishing a once loved brand
An important aspect of the new site was introduce the rebranded company to a new audience, whilst not alienating the existing loyal customer base. After an investigative period of research, we delivered a social media strategy, encouraging Blanco to establish a fresh but distinctive tone of voice and visual language across all platforms. This was integrated with the design and content of the new site for a wide reaching and consistent brand personality.
user experience
Reducing customer anxiety
A primary goal for the whole site, but specifically the product page, was to reduce any potential anxiety customers may face. Anxiety is one of the key factors that makes users think twice and stop before completing their purchase. We reduced abandonment rates by giving product a narrative, giving quick and easy access to key product details, showing how items can be part of a wider outfit, and enhancing the whole cart/checkout journey to offer a bespoke experience users can trust.
micro-interactions
Avoiding common pitfalls is a key step to reducing customer frustration, and ultimately abandonment. We designed a series of micro-interactions across the store to help users complete their purchase intuitively and efficiently. For example, instead of showing an alarming error message if the user tries adding a pair of jeans to cart without choosing a size, let's just give them the option to choose now instead.
Cross sells
We conceptually split cross-sells into two banks: what to wear instead of the current product, and what to wear with the current product. The former uses uses model shots so users can compare fit and style. Pieces that could be bought together as an outfit are shown without models so users can visualise their own outfit. Both banks are firstly curated by the merchandise team at Blanco, but have a series of intelligent context-aware algorithms to automatically populate cross sell banks to reduce manual workload.
time based interactions
We introduced a series of time-based, context-aware messages across the product, cart and checkout pages. These are visually distinct from the rest of the page, and highlight promotions to encourage completion ("quick — items aren't reserved until you finish checkout") and to increase basket spend ("you only need to spend €12 more to get next day delivery").
brand positioning
Giving users useful, relevant content
Prices increased with the brand positing itself towards a more luxurious market. It wasn’t good enough just to show basic information any more, so we structured product pages to allow more product details to be shown (such as composition, care instructions, model-specific information). We also introduced a more narrative driven product description to give pieces context, show that they’re part of a wider collection, and ultimately make users feel like they’re buying into a lifestyle.
merchandising
We designed small tags that highlight specific products on the product category pages. These help pull out special items when browsing: drawing attention to new collections, sale items or editor's picks. Not only does this help promote pieces within each category and help break up the repetition, the design and styling of the tags help reinforce the sophisticated brand refresh.
cross sells
To encourage purchasing of multiple items, we introduced the idea to let Blanco cross sell on product category pages, too. If a customer is shopping for a pair of jeans, a prominent tile promoting belts can be featured. These tiles are styled differently to the product grid to help users understand what they're looking at, and also help bring some of the branded instore experience to the website — it's exactly how bricks and mortar fashion stores are arranged.
multiple states
Avoiding dead-ends
We never want the customer to be left with nothing to do. They haven’t got any items in their cart? Let’s help them with that. No search results? Let’s show popular items instead. Every part of Blanco’s site is designed to reduce abandonment and increase completions. Avoiding dead-ends and designing multiple states of each page goes a long way to achieving that.
Optimised for mobile
Our designs were optimised for mobile from the start. Users are five times more likely to leave mobile site that's not mobile friendly, and today customers are increasingly using mobile to shop — more people search on mobile devices than computers. Mobile users tend to be goal-orientated, so without sacrificing the branded experience, we were able to think about the needs of customers to ensure the site was quick and efficient.
user experience
We took extra care to consider the checkout user experience for mobile users. Too many checkouts are slow and cumbersome on smaller devices. We wanted to make sure the user had everything they need to make the purchase quickly and efficiently, with a truly optimised checkout journey. We dramatically reduced the number of steps necessary using a logical architecture, gave easy access to order summary information at the top of each page, and ensured all forms and inputs were clearly defined and easy to tap.
modular content
We designed a much longer homepage with a range of interactive hotspots. The new system lets users see banks of individual products, collections, editorial content, and a range of promotional banners. This space introduces customers to product, whilst simultaneously reinforcing Blanco’s new luxury status. The modular architecture makes the homepage flexible, allowing quick and easy updating by staff to keep the site fresh and updated.
integrated marketing strategy
We help devise digital marketing strategies, designing flexible marketing templates and assets. Social media channels are an important aspect of digital marketing, but studies show email acquisition quadrupled over the last four years, proving it's still a crucial marketing tool. For Blanco, we designed a series of flexible email templates the team use for weekly promotional mail-outs. We also provided research and consultation on core social media channels.
editorial
Part of bringing a memorable branded experience to Blanco's new site introducing an extensive magazine section, featuring articles on topics such as fashion, beauty, food, and celebrity. This is an important part of realigning Blanco from a fast fashion retailer to a lifestyle brand. With smart filtering, video content and photo galleries, the magazine section brings warmth and personality — making a Blanco a destination. The content is also very sharable, so is perfect for the brand to publish across social media, and for followers to share with their friends, too. The design has a strong sense of character, whilst keeping a stylish and sophisticated aesthetic.
shoppable galleries
Another aspect of adding value to the brand was to introduce a series of new image-led sections. These give Blanco the opportunity to showcase collections in a variety of ways: highly art directed look books to launch each collection, weekly outfit looks, and user generated 'on the street' content. These sections bring variety to the site, using a mix of quality photography and video content. User generated content adds authenticity to the store, giving users a real insight and reducing anxiety. Crucially, each gallery section is shoppable: with a couple of clicks users can add the outfit (or individual pieces) to their cart. Every part of Blanco's website looks beautiful, but has a real commercial focus at all times.
social strategy in action
#BLANCOACTIVE | Descubre nuestra línea deportiva y ACTÍVATE! →https://t.co/Kh8fD8yqjD pic.twitter.com/RRIYVEpmus
— BLANCO (@BLANCO_1960) March 22, 2016
YA ESTAMOS ONLINE! Descubre nuestras novedades, empieza por la colección de Beachwear! → https://t.co/1n2Uar2kB6 pic.twitter.com/hXAJ4do8PB
— BLANCO (@BLANCO_1960) May 25, 2016
BACK TO NAVY
— BLANCO (@BLANCO_1960) March 21, 2016
Los primeros bikinis para dar la bienvenida a la nueva colección → https://t.co/B5GGKhvKEO pic.twitter.com/St5oDTRLzH
How we worked with the team
Marvel lets us prototype and refine, with contextual presentation
We use Adobe CC for designing and animating assets
Teamwork is a tool for project management with the various teams
We're always looking for new challenges and experiences. Whether you're a tech startup, one man band or large established agency, we'd love to hear from you. Get in touch →