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E-Commerce Launch & A/B Testing for Mars International

Role

Lead Designer

Company

White Cloud Brands

Team Size

6

Duration

3 Months

Overview

In 2016, MARS International approached White Cloud Brands, a brand consulting firm in South India, to launch and boost their products - Pedigree & Whiskas on newly growing ecommerce platforms.

This case study explains various strategies we have implemented to increase online presence of the brand's products. This activity has not only increased the conversion rates of the products, but also succeeded in spreading MARS' global presence into South Indian cities.
Business Challenge

Being the first-mover in the e-commerce space in India (in the pet care segment), there were no established benchmarks to study and replicate. Additionally, SKU-specific content across the Mars Petcare range (~100 SKUs) was not uniformly available, making the job of writing rich, SEO-friendly content tougher.

Moreover, specific partner sites (Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Big Basket, Grofers, etc.) had stringent norms of their own, necessitating the creation of multiple versions of images and content.

Most importantly, the visual merchandising strategy had to result in the creation of ‘hooks’ for different kinds of buyers – loyal buyers, those buying competing brands, those feeding home-cooked food, price-conscious buyers, left-brain/right-brain thinkers, etc.

Client brief

The client’s expectation from White Cloud Brands was to

  • Create handle the entire gamut of e-commerce visual merchandising initiatives comprising taxonomy (search-optimized, comprehensive product titles), search images (for product search page), pack visualizations, display images and long-form content (for product display page), custom content & imagery (for specific partner properties) and content & imagery (for promotional banners)
  • Drive greater traffic to product pages (on e-commerce sites), conversion (from home-cooked food to packaged food) and basket size (more revenue per buyer)

    • The Strategies
  • Design Adaptations
  • Brand Campaigns
  • SEO enabled E-Comm Content
  • A/B Testing
    • Strategy

    01

    Design Adaptations

    MARS has a well defined design system, which is being implemented by it's tied up agencies globally. To introduce it to indian market, we leveraged and adapted the existing branding and design system to Indian e-comm needs.
    The Renders
    As a first state of action we converted the CMYK package designs to beautiful 3d renders. 3D packaging has clear advantage when compared to photshoot, because of the freedom to use the renders in any angle or environment as required for the branding campaigns.
    Strategy

    02

    Brand Campaigns

    MARS has universal brand campaigns called "Feed the good" for Pedigree and "Feed their curiosity" for Whiskas. I have adapted those campaigns and created new concepts with a touch of digital art to fit the various sizes of e-commerce banners.
    The Concepts
    Step

    03

    Rich E-Comm Content

    To address the challenge of lack of availability of uniformly rich source content, we collated content from multiple sources – Pedigree India site, Amazon US & UK sites, Mars Petcare global sites, different marketing collateral, etc. – ensuring that content for all SKUs was equally rich.
    A+ Content

    In terms of creating suitable ‘hooks’ for different kinds of buyers, we wrote/structured content with a mix of rational & emotional appeal, incorporated search keywords into content, included specific images with ‘cost per meal’ for price-conscious buyers, and added feeding guidelines & conversion images for new buyers.



    Step

    04

    A/B Testing

    We have designed numerous concepts for testing the release into a new market for various platforms. We have conducted research on user purchase behavior and what are the various campagins that would work on different platforms and what are various campaigns run by the competitors.
  • Amazon & Flipkart: Informative rich content that displays "care" for their budget and family
  • Grofers: A product that should be included in your daily needs
  • Snapdeal: Market it along with the deals as a bundle



    • The Results

    Since our work on the visual merchandising went live, the client has enjoyed significant success on partner sites.

  • Engagement rate is the highest in its category, indicating that the creatives are appealing to online buyers
  • Product page views shot by 42% in the first month, and 300% in the second
  • Daily cart additions improved by 21% in the first month, and 314% in the second
  • Daily wish-list additions went up by 120% in the first month, and 361% in the second
  • Daily sales went up by up to 6.5X during specific campaigns