How I learned to love makeup.
Last year we received a call out of the blue. It was a former colleague, asking if we knew of any firms that would be interested in potentially redesigning the website for Bobbi Brown Cosmetics.
After a brief moment of shocked silence, we politely requested Zeus Jones be thrown into the mix of contenders.
From there, we competed against a veritable who’s who in the Interactive and website development worlds for the assignment. What set us apart from the crowd, and ultimately won us the work was the statement we opened the meeting with: “Although several of the partners have many years of experience doing interactive work, we don’t do websites. We aren’t an interactive shop.”
After that got their attention, we convinced them what they needed wasn’t a website, but a set of services across all their channels that created deeper engagement and relationships with their consumers. The website was certainly part of that mix, but we explained we saw the website as a vehicle to deliver those services, not the end goal in and of itself.
The Creative and Executive teams at Bobbi Brown ended up agreeing with our point of view, and ultimately awarding us the work. What then ensued, at our request, was a crash course in Bobbi Brown the individual, Bobbi Brown the brand, and the world of cosmetics.
In the Immersion phase of all our client engagements we almost always uncover an underutilized or underperforming marketing asset. This case was no exception. During our meetings with Bobbi and all the members of her staff and team, we were amazed at how complex and dynamic Bobbi Brown (the individual) was on so many levels. We were blown away by her amazing philosophy and approach to beauty, her hands on work elevating the practice of professional makeup artistry, and her broader advocacy around health and beauty issues for women of all ages. None of this was being fully utilized across any of the brand’s marketing channels, and least of all on the existing e-commerce site.
Also, as part of the Immersion phase we spent time at a Bobbi Brown makeup counters.The experience at a Bobbi counter is very different from that of other brands. When you walk up to a Bobbi Brown counter you don’t have the color of the month thrust into your face. Core to Bobbi’s product design and overall philosophy is the notion of individual beauty. For Bobbi, the best color is the color that looks best on you, and that brings out your natural beauty, which is why many women hear things like, “Wow, you look incredible. What’s different?” after they’ve had a consultation at a Bobbi counter.
Bobbi also believes that all women should be empowered to be their own makeup artists. As Bobbi artists are consulting with a customer they demonstrate all of the techniques you will need to complete everything they are doing at home. They also arm consumers with take-away materials like Bobbi’s 10-Step process and Face Charts that they can refer back to.
Despite all of our “We don’t do websites” talk, the first part of our assignment was to tackle the website, since it was lagging behind the rest of the channels, and also had the most upside potential.
So how do you create a website that is at once a streamlined e-commerce experience, but also communicates the personality and passions of Bobbi, helps consumers place themselves in the product line, and empowers them to be their own makeup artists?
We decided to create an experience that has three distinct but interrelated “layers” of engagement.
First we tackled Shopping. We needed to create an experience that welcomed users that were unfamiliar with the product line and helped them easily discover products, but that also allowed loyal Bobbi customers to quickly replenish their favorite items.
We accomplished this by streamlining the navigation and allowing users who knew exactly where they wanted to go to dive deep into product categories in a single click. For the uninitiated, we created category landing pages that were rich with content and tools to help consumers get a better sense of how best to use a product line, and find those products that are right for them.
At any point during the shopping experience, a customer in need of help for advice can access the second mode of the site, the Consultative layer. This layer takes advantage of one of the other underutilized assets we discovered in our Immersion phase, the Online Artists. Unlike many other brands with online chat support, the Bobbi Online Artists are fully trained makeup artists, some of whom were among the first artists Bobbi ever hired. These Artists provide real time consultation and advice to consumers shopping on the site. As part of our work, we raised the profile of this service, and made it more available contextually throughout the site.
As another part of the Consultative layer of the site, we created an interactive version of Bobbi’s famous Lip System. To use the Lip System, a consumer selects a shade closest to their natural lip color, and then is shown an entire “lip wardrobe” of different shades and finishes that have been hand selected by Bobbi to look great with their skin tone.
The third layer of the site is the editorial layer. This was the area of the site where we infused Bobbi’s teaching, philosophy, and personality into the experience. The content in this section is as varied as Bobbi herself. A few of the items you’ll find there include: detailed tips and how-to’s, behind-the-scenes videos of Bobbi working runway shows at Fashion Week, details of her charity work with Dressed for Success, beauty guides for both teens and women over 50, and a list of her personal favorite fashion, health, and fitness products.
As I mentioned before, the three layers are all connected and interrelated. We architected the site so that they weave together seamlessly and play off each others strengths. Consultative supports and reinforces the shopping experience, Shopping is present in Editorial so you can easily buy the products from a how-to you are reading etc.
We worked for many months bringing the site to life in close collaboration with both the Technical and Creative teams at Bobbi Brown, and you can see the preliminary results for yourself at bobbibrowncosmetics.com.
We set out with a very ambitious scope for the site, that was somewhat tempered by the realities of the development process. We look forward to phase 2 where we roll out more of the Consultative features that we’ve designed for the site. And who knows what phase 3 will hold…
My Fashion News Feed Sarah Shopper Says:
September 30th, 2009 at 9:23 am[...] How I learned to love makeup. [...]
donnawiederkehr Says:
September 30th, 2009 at 3:35 pmGreat story. Smart and inspiring. Congrats!
e-Strategy Internet Marketing Blog Says:
October 5th, 2009 at 7:54 amMinnesota Monday – Communications Bloggers Posts From Last Week…
Interesting posts from Minnesota commmunications bloggers for the week ending 10/04/09.
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