Reel created by HearstMade; premiered at Cannes 2024.
No one likes advertisements. But how can we provide value in a visually appealing way that still serves and supports a user's online shopping journey? With the ever-evolving landscape of digital media, the advertising product team sought to create a suite of innovative ad formats that seamlessly integrate shopping experiences into editorial content.
We focused on creating two key products: premium native commerce ads that blend naturally with digital magazine content, and retail media ads that enable direct purchases through a think tank marketplace.
The team conducted a thorough series of market audience interviews to test different templates that provide value within a high quality experience. By deeply understanding online shopping habits, we built a series of advertising units throughout our storytelling channels that were designed to break the barriers of shopping funnels by building long term trust through consistency with our consumers.
Credits:
Product Team: Jen Dorre, VP of Ad Product; Kenneth Hoo, Director of Ad Product; Sofia Machline, Senior Product Manager; Carolyn Lukeiwski, Product Manager
Dev and Tech Team: Jeffrey Delong; Weyland Jung; Nart Asaad
User Research Strategy: Gregg Bernstein, Director; Meghan Cetera, Senior User Researcher
HearstMade Studio: Phil Flanagan, Designer; Joe MacGillis, Creative Director
Celtra: Kelly Carmody, Sr. Director of Customer Success
Product Design: Cybele Grandjean, VP of Product Design; Michael Solomon, Design Director; Matthew Bollen, Senior Principle Designer; Masha Vainblat, Product Designer
Strategically designed to seamlessly blend magazine article content with relevant and competitive media, the Retail Media Ad allows for brand discovery from a trusted resource.
This lower funnel piece leans on UX principles and design psychology utilizing high contrast and consistency that increased click through rates five-fold across a suite of portfolio brands.
We strategically applied UX data habits with design psychology to provide value to our consumers through visual consistency backed by user research and live audience tests. This uncovered opportunities throughout the product discovery process allowing us to innovate within a legacy media industry.
With a background in content strategy, I challenged how far a single piece of creative content can be stretched from marketing and advertising to social and editorial. The initial discovery designs delivered ideas beyond scope, leveraging media consumption habits with product research patterns and expectations from static product images to video and dynamic templated compositions.
Variant component wireframes during early ideation.
From sketches to screens.
This template was tested across a suite of brands and built as a base component meant to scale.
The Native Commerce Unit provides value as a top of funnel, highly relevant and contextually competitive advertising option allowing users to quickly compare products by leaning into the native visual brand guidelines.
Onboarded brands must adhere to a set of creative guidelines in order to drive the best results for these units by providing or by co-producing high quality content with Hearst's in-house creative studio, HearstMade.
Re-imagining the commerce article experience by leveraging social media browsing habits and immersive technology expectations within a new age of storytelling and content engagement.
