2020 // HSN
CREATIVE DIRECTION
BRANDING
WEBSITE DESIGN
The challenge: Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers shifted their emphasis towards digital channels in pursuit of their Q4 targets, leading to an intensely competitive online marketplace.
Our solution: Create weekly events in November rather than one large Black Friday sale. “Better Than Black Friday” was the first weekend and our best deal.
The result: Better Than Black Friday achieved $16M in digital sales, exceeding plan by 10% and $1.5M.
The homepage banner was the highest performing banner in HSN’s history, with a CTR of 10.4% and over 65,000 clicks.
In one day alone, traffic to HSN.com was over 625,000 total views, which was the highest of the year by over 100,000.
The event also generated over 50,000 new names to HSN, 75% of which came from digital sales.
My Process
phase one: define
In order to differentiate from our everyday homepage and make the events feel special, my team decided on the following:
Add black to our color palette
Use patterns and glitter as backgrounds
Create a homepage takeover that works on both mobile and desktop
In the past, homepage takeovers were successful on desktop by simply adding a full-width background. Individual assets remained the same. This approach wasn’t mobile-friendly because mobile assets already spanned the entire width of the screen.
Over 70% of HSN’s digital traffic comes from mobile devices. Creating a takeover that looked great on mobile was vital.
I also had to consider our site production team—we were on a tight deadline, and they were short-staffed. My designs needed to be easy to implement.
challenge: mobile takeover
phase two: audit
I conducted an in-depth analysis of our desktop and mobile homepages and identified assets we could easily change.
I prioritized my list for the site production team in case they couldn’t finish on time.
top banner
The top banner was my highest priority to create disruption, differentiate from our everyday look, and set the tone for the rest of the page.
ts bug
Today’s Special (TS) is a daily deal that generates about 25% of our sales. This bug has permanent placement on our homepage. An update for the event would create importance and increase exposure.
html type
HTML type living below an asset is typically navy blue. Changing this to black would create consistency with our Black Friday palette.
promotional callouts
These callouts live throughout the homepage. I decided to create black and pink versions.
mosaic
Our existing mosaic reflected HSN’s standard brand palette. I recommended changing it to our new Black Friday palette.
big deals carousel
I wanted to make this carousel black and pink to add a promotional feel to it.
watch & shop
This section is a fixed spot, showcasing products that recently aired on HSN. I recommended we only change the background color and HTML type.
phase three: create
Since I was on a tight deadline, creating all new assets wasn’t possible. I determined what I needed to create and what to repurpose with minor edits.
I also identified areas that didn’t require new art, like changing HTML text and background colors.
top banner
This is the first thing our customer sees when going to our website, and needs to grab her attention with our best promotion.
There were also several messages I needed to include, so the copy hierarchy was crucial in my designs. Looking back on this, I created 16 different versions.
promotional callouts
I had already created several callouts for our holiday campaign, so I was able to repurpose those with minor edits.
These were part of a library that our designers choose from for each job, so it was no extra work for production.
mosaic
This mosaic was an existing asset from our holiday campaign. I changed the background color and details to our Black Friday palette.
These simple changes were an easy update for our production team that ultimately made a significant impact in maintaining consistency on the page.
The Final
top banner
The top banner had a CTR of 10.4% and over 65,000 clicks. It was not only the highest performer of the year, but the strongest performing banner in HSN’s history.
For context, the next highest performing banner of 2020 had 30,000 clicks and average CTR is about 2%.
today’s special
Over the course of the weekend, the TS sales were over $625,000.
They also generated nearly 7,000 new customers to HSN.
promos
Beauty sales for the weekend were up $194,000 and 13% to plan.
Electronics sales generated $3.5M throughout the event.
mosaic
The mosaic had above-average clicks, with Cozy and Wellness as the strongest categories.
big deals carousel
Performance of the Big Deals carousel was above average in both clicks and CTR.
watch & shop
By simply changing the background color and type to match the rest of the homepage, the conversion rate of this section increased by 80% from the previous week.