Ecover Connect
Digital Media Strategy for Ecover
Digital Media Strategy for Ecover
During March 2020, we were given the opportunity to work with the world-wide known brand Ecover, to develop a new strategy to achieve their digital and community building objectives for the long term, while also staying true to their core values, regarding sustainability, circular economy and social consciousness. This was a collaborative effort between Politécnico di Milano and Antwerp Management School in Belgium.
Even if this project was planned to be worked in person, due to the Corona situations, we were challenged to deliver the project remotely with no possibility of meeting in person or going outside.
The Solution: Ecover Connect
“Ecover Connect is an online initiative where NGOs can partner with ECOVER to build on each other’s communities and raise awareness for shared sustainable development goals.”
The initiative is a multi-sided platform that reconnects customers and NGOs with the planet through ECOVERs products and mission. Its purpose is to create a movement of an engaged community that wants to contribute to a world where nature, people and business can thrive together. The most prominent objective of these NGO partnerships is to raise brand awareness for ECOVER and to attract the millennial target audience, which is a much more informed and conscious societal group.
My Role/The Team
Role: My Role was to be in charge of the UX solution and the visual design for the project. In addition, the entire team was part of the market and user research, project management and business development.
The team: 2 Business majors, 1 Media Communicator, 1 Interior/Strategist Designer, 1 Graphic/Strategist Designer
Basic Research Conclusions
1) Market:
- Many consumers were well informed on the strong values of the ECOVER brand.
- Many consumers were well informed on the strong values of the ECOVER brand.
- Brand has an abundance of unused potential to convert many individuals to sustainability advocates.
- Potential of NGO partnerships and focus on a millennial target audience, whilst building a strong community around their shared values.
2) User:
- The millennial generation are currently the largest working population
- Share a great interest in charitable and sustainable causes
- Much more informed and conscious generation that contribute to causes they care about
- Demand transparency and results from businesses
For them, it is no longer only about the products, but they want a way to connect with brands that go above and beyond for our planet. ECOVER does not currently target this group.
The platform development
After having discussed all the relevant assets this new platform should have, we were very confused on how to shape all of these ideas we had floating around. That was the moment when UX came in handy and I tried organizing our ideas into a chart that we could use to move on onwards.
We developed an early model of how all of these sections would interact with each other, and how it would be connected to Ecover's main channels.
However, after having the idea somehow formed, we still thought that it was lacking the connection to their current digital community: Ecover's social media. That is how we came up with a Go to Market strategy that mixes both channels, including their current physical spots, turning this project into an omni-channel strategy.
Go to Market Strategy
During our research phase, we discovered that different sized NGOs operate on different promotional scales. Thus we found it appropriate to consider the needs and levels of investment when providing offline and online marketing channels. That is why we created three different plans, for big, medium and smaller NGO's. All of them included different assets between offline and online channels.
Conclusion: Business Model Canvas
As a way of putting all of our research and development together, we decided to follow the business model canvas to better visualize our project.
Personal Conclusions
As a personal conclusion, it was a very intense and motivating project to work on. In the middle of the most important sanitary crisis of the century, during times of fear and confusion, having a project as such to focus on, was truly a gift. Aside of the external circumstances, we had to meet and work with new people (through Skype) from a completely different approach, so this project turned to be a lot more business-oriented that what I was used to. I learned a lot about what points to take into consideration, such as logistics and of course, budget. It is very easy to let go your imagination and come up with thousands of ideas that are not as possible as one would think. Make it real, can this concept really happen?. That is why I think this was a fantastic sprint and I was glad I had the chance to learn from a very different and challenging environment.
If you would like to read the complete business plan, you can read it here.
Thank you very much for reading!
Ecover- Politécnico di Milano - Antwerp Management School 2020.
Ecover- Politécnico di Milano - Antwerp Management School 2020.
