DEFINING THE NORTH STAR FOR A GLOBAL BRAND.COM EXPERIENCE
THE CHALLENGE
Consumer expectations for brand-owned commerce have fundamentally shifted. A brand.com can no longer afford to be purely transactional—it needs to educate, guide, and reflect the values of the brand in every interaction. Leadership challenged us to define what that future looks like and make the case for it at the highest levels of the organization.
THE IMPACT
The work defined a unifying strategic framework—Educate, Guide, Reflect—grounded in 550+ research studies across 20+ brand and competitor sites and 30+ cross-functional working sessions. Prototyped through Aveda across multiple iterations, I presented the work to the President of Online, the Chief Brand Officer, and the CEO before it was adopted as the North Star vision at the CEO and Board of Directors online strategy meeting.
Role
VP, Experience Design
Responsibilities
UX Direction / Research Strategy /
Creative Direction / Concepting /
Prototyping / Stakeholder Presentation
Brands
20+ ELC Portfolio · Concept: Aveda
Year
2024 /25
Strategic Working Sessions
Cross-functional working sessions brought together strategy, research, product, design, content, and engineering to translate research insights into actionable concepts—surfacing key opportunities and shaping the creative direction for the project.
GROUNDED
in RESEARCH
This initiative was built on an extensive body of consumer and competitive research—550+ primary and secondary studies, reviews of 20+ brand and competitor sites, and two qualitative research studies—surfacing evolving consumer expectations around education, discovery, and brand values that shaped every creative and strategic decision.
The concept
Research revealed three core roles consumers expect a brand.com to fulfill—educate, guide, and reflect the brand's values. These principles became the foundation for the Educate, Guide, Reflect framework, brought to life through Aveda as the conceptual lens.
Executive
PRESENTATION
The prototype and strategic framework were presented to the CEO, board of directors, and brand presidents at the company's annual online strategy session—adopted as the North Star vision for the future of the company's brand.com experiences.
View Prototype - best experienced in mobile browser