SIEGEL+GALE • SUMMER 2024
Global new brand experience strategy for Unilever's ice cream spin-off
Led end-to-end experience strategy and product design in a 10-week brand activation project, pitched to S+G and Unilever leadership.
TIMELINE
Summer 2024
ROLE
Sole product designer and experience strategist
TOOLS
Figma
SKILLS
Product design, prototyping, interaction design, UX research, experience strategy
BACKGROUND
As the Experience Design Intern for my intern cohort project at Siegel+Gale, I was tasked to define the experience strategy and develop the product design of a new brand activation.
The project spanned the length of the internship, which was 10 weeks. The general breakdown of work followed a chronological timeline by discipline, modeled after the order that Siegel+Gale uses for its client work; however, though each intern led their respective section, we all contributed during each stage of the project to ensure that the final product was a collaborative effort.
FIGURE 1. Intern project timeline—I led the Experience section, outlined in red!
Project Brief
In early 2024, Unilever spun off its ice cream division, opening an opportunity to create a brand serving as a new leader in the space.
This presented an opportunity on the company level to reflect on Unilever's current ice cream portfolio and identify where a net-new brand could breathe new life.
Goals for this new brand would be to:
Uplift and unify the portfolio in preparation for a successful spin off from Unilever
Contribute to a distinctive seal of quality across portfolio offerings
Become a differentiated and undisputed ice cream leader
RESEARCH
Surveys and Interviews
To first gain a better understanding of the current landscape of frozen desserts, I helped conduct exploratory research for my team through several comprehensive discovery inputs:
11 brand audits spanning current portfolio brands and competitors
5 qualitative interviews, split between internal and external stakeholders
3 quantitative analysis tools to extrapolate findings, namely EyeOpener, Infegy, and YouGov
We surveyed
183
consumers across the U.S.
A series of multiple choice and open-ended questions.
We asked about
Perceptions on frozen desserts
Which frozen desserts are consumed and how
Opinions on various ice cream brands
Respondent demographics
57%
18-34 years old
45%
work at Siegel+Gale
FIGURE 2. General statistics from our collective exploratory research
The survey results left us with the following findings and opportunities.
Finding 1: Super premium is both the most in-demand and fastest growing category, but the tone of brands in the space are overly pop—they lack a sense of elevation.
Two of our top key drivers from our survey were "Uses quality ingredients" and "Is a premium brand".
This is reflected in the growing public preference towards super premium ice cream, now the fastest growing category in the industry.
However, the previous super premium category leader Haagen Dazs has since traded its past image of elevation for a now more common casual and pop look.
Haagen Dazs's former branding
Haagen Dazs's pop image post-rebrand
Other brands in the super premium space
This industry trend towards pop presented an opportunity to set our net-new brand apart by pulling cues from existing luxury brands—namely through product quality, curated storytelling and world-building, and careful art direction.
Opportunity 1: Capture and embed modern sensibilities of super premium in the product brand to set it apart.
Finding 2: Competition exists in the realm of familiar flavors.
Consumers clearly want new offerings in ice cream.
However, there already exists players within the space of super premium and explorative flavors.
These brands explore with flavors in a way that’s familiar to the palate, but not very common in ice cream itself—revealing an opportunity to explore culturally.
Opportunity 2: Distinguish the product brand's offerings further—offering culturally explorative flavors.
Finding 3: People want ice cream that is for them.
In our survey, we found 5 specific key drivers in preference for a given ice cream brand.
However, though our previous finding met the last driver through culturally explorative flavors, the survey also revealed a need for accessible options for those with dairy restrictions.
Opportunity 3: Ensure the product brand delivers on accessibility and meets the needs of those with dairy restrictions.
BRAND STRATEGY
Guided by Siegel+Gale’s motto of “Simple is Smart”, I worked with my team to boil down the essence of our new brand identity into a singular strategic direction by envisioning what a memorable and punctual user experience may look like.
Culturally Artisanal
Product-oriented positioning that elevates the brand's craft—making the highest quality ice-cream based in cultures around the globe.
Melting Pot
Positioning around the idea of culture from a more American POV, as a country made of diverse cultures.
Cultural Intrigue
Diversity stems from a natural fascination of experiences beyond our own.
FIGURE 3. The three options for the net-new brand's strategic direction based on our research
Out of the main three concepts we had brainstormed, we ultimately went with the option of 'Cultural Intrigue' for its emphasis on equitably educating consumers about the world of flavors.
This concept then went on to guide our name creation, brand positioning, and visual identity.
Themes:
Discovery
Gateway into new worlds
Travel
Tone:
Accessibly elevated, modern premium
Word Type:
Short, single-word, culturally neutral
BRAND NAME
VOiA
Sourced from ‘voyage’
Inspired by the moment of discovery. Tasting a new flavor, meeting a new friend, listening to a new artist.
Continuing with the brand identity of 'Cultural Intrigue' and the competitive whitespace that we had identified in our preliminary research, we conceptualized several other brand artifacts to form our brand platform.
FIGURE 4. Net-new brand platform that we conceptualized based on 'Cultural Intrigue'
User Types and Stories
Using the brand platform, I created two user types based on the perceived characteristics, tone, and motivations in order to gain a better sense of the kind of consumers we would want to appeal to.
Note that while the two types are not mutually exclusive in traits, I still chose to create two separate user types to better visualize key user needs when designing the VOiA experience.
Life-long Learner
Attitudes:
Open-minded
Explorative/experimenter
Curious
Tries everything once
Values:
Memorable experiences over materialism
Authenticity
Pain Points:
Lack of brand direction or grounding value
High barrier to entry
Usual Channels:
Word-of-mouth
Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok
Yelp
Rabbit Hole Researcher
Attitudes:
Always researching
Gets to the bottom of things
Values:
Credibility
Trust
Pain Points:
Lack of educational information or transparency
Usual Channels:
Yelp,
Substack
Reddit, Twitter
Creating these user types allowed me to better understand what platforms a consumer may need in order to enter and uplift their brand experience with VOiA.
Ultimately, I decided on a main website and a rewards app—website as a necessity for any brand, and an app to engage with customers further since our brand identity is based on immersion.
I created touchpoint "profiles" for the two platforms in order to help the team visualize the role of each platform in the customer journey better.
Creating the touchpoint profiles allowed to me to single out the commonalities that would later become my grounding goals for VOiA's user experience.
EXPERIENCE OBJECTIVES
The experiential objective, through all of VOiA's touchpoints, is to encourage users to explore all the flavors that the world has to offer—specifically through VOiA ice cream.
Reflecting an entire world’s worth of flavors is a challenge equally as exciting as it is daunting and undone; thus, the experience should speak to this.
Immerse
Engage visitors in the world of flavors through VOiA
Excite
Set ourselves apart experience-wise from competitors
Respect
Pay homage to the cultural roots as much as possible
Journey Mapping
Using our user types as guidelines, I aligned all of our touchpoints under a holistic user journey.
My goal with VOiA's brand experience was to leave every consumer feeling more informed and enriched than when they began, so I made the journey map such that each continuous interaction with the VOiA brand pushed consumers along a series of phases that contributed to a progressively positive experience.
Before: First draft of the full user journey map—note the increase in positive affect
After: The simplified journey map I presented in our final presentation
My intention with the journey map was to make it cyclical and self-facilitating.
I made loyalty as the last phase of the journey map, in the sense that when newly loyal consumers felt compelled to share their VOiA experience with others, they would also be driving new consumers into the discovery phase—ensuring that VOiA is continuously expanding its outreach.
FIGURE 5. User journey map in the form of cyclical phases
Information Architecture
Unfortunately due to time constraints across all of the interns’ ends, I was only able to deliver a prototype of the homepage for the website; however, I still built out the information architecture for both the website and app, so that there could always be potential to add full functionality.
FIGURE 6. VOiA website and app information architecture, prototyped sections highlighted in green.
FINAL PRODUCT
So, what's it like to discover VOiA?
Phase: Discovery
First, discovery of the brand—marked by the consumer's introduction into and their first impressions of the VOiA world.
Socials
Word-of-mouth
Ad campaigns
News
These points of introduction lead consumers to the website, further reinforcing their understanding of the VOiA brand through a distinct visual identity and content placement.
More specifically, VOiA’s core values are communicated immediately upon entering the website.
Immersing through full-width screen and gateway visuals
Exciting by introducing unexpected interactive elements
Respecting by honoring the culture the flavor hails from.
Phase: Consideration
Once consumers enter the website and are familiarized with VOiA's brand, they are ushered into the product consideration phase.
Consumers scroll down next to see VOiA's featured flavors section, shifting attention back on purchasing a product.
The product consideration process is also brand-aligned, to further cement VOiA's brand identity.
Flavor map to explore flavors by their source
Flavor origin stories to ground VOiA products in education
Phase: Purchase
Consumers have numerous ways to obtain the ice cream after purchasing, which increases the feasibility of cultural exchange.
Nationwide shipping
Local pickup and delivery
Grocery stores
Storefronts
Physical activations
Those shopping in-person have an additional opportunity to cash in through VOiA’s in-app rewards program, the Charter Club.
Website banner advertising the rewards program encourages consumers to move from the consideration phase to the purchase phase
Phase: Loyalty
The inherent shareability of VOiA’s signature experiences facilitates the cycle of new user discovery and loyalty.
REFLECTIONS
I learned countless lessons during my time at Siegel+Gale, both from the intern project and from my company work, more than I could ever list here! The following, however, were by far my largest takeaways.
Have confidence in your opinions, skills, and capabilities!
Siegel+Gale was my first truly corporate workplace experience, so when I first began I was often afraid that I wasn't qualified enough to give my opinion or contribute my own work amongst such experienced senior colleagues. However, everyone in the office never failed to reassure me that I had landed the internship for a reason, and thus my perspective was highly valued at the table. They helped give me the confidence to speak my mind, ask big questions, and be bold—things I intend on taking with me wherever I go!
There is a story, an essence to be summed, in everything.
Branding, business strategy, and user experience are all similar in that if you can capture the underlying through-line and apply it clearly to the product, you can connect with users much more deeply. This has taught me to design with more lucidity—simplifying down to the essence in order to create a greater impact.
Endless thanks to the Experience team, my fellow interns, and everyone in the LA office for such a memorable and transformative summer! Having the opportunity to work alongside such creative, visionary minds inspired and motivated me greatly to create my best work. I will forever be preaching the mantra of "Simple is Smart" from now on :)
Intern beach day + competitor research! (AKA sweet treat stop)