Ava Choices branding evolution

Work completed at DPH Group

My role: UX and Web Designer, reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer.
Copywriting by the Assistant Brand Manager
Skills used: Branding, Graphic Design, UI Design
Duration: May 2021

Overview

In May 2021, there was a change in ownership within Ava Choices. The new CMO wanted to see how the existing brand could develop as well as some alternative options. I presented some homepage ideas, which the owners used to choose a new look with a more high-end “John Lewis” influence, that would give a feel of quality and trust. Time was limited, with only 5 weeks between briefing and launch of the new website information pages. Internal feedback was extremely positive, with members of the board passing on messages to say how much they loved the new look.

The branding later evolved organically to reflect the updated target audience and business objectives, outlined in the System Overhaul case study. As the audience now included a younger bracket and a full rebuild planned, I was not limited by the disconnect the first rebrand created between the information pages and the account area of the system. I therefore refined the colours to be more contemporary.

Users and audience

Ava Choices branding is focused on its Consumers - 55+ year olds in the UK who require care at home services or are looking for a care home for themselves or a loved one. This was later refined to 35+ year olds who required self-funded home care services.

Scope and constraints

  • Time was of the essence, with only 5 weeks between briefing and new site pages going live. The Ava Choices platform was built by an internal team of developers who we not able to update the full system colours and appearance within the time scale provided. A review of the system was planned for a later date which would include brand updates. To avoid too much contrast between the two sections, I needed to keep the lead brand Peach. It was also important that the site pages had consistent page structures where possible for a quick build.

  • There was also no budget or time available to conduct any target audience reviews of the brand. A few low budget social media adverts were to launch alongside the site to test the appeal.

Process

I began by creating mood boards for some possible routes, researching the target audience and brands they are interested in before exploring more varied sources of inspiration to create the boards. From these, I designed some initial home page options to see how these looks affected the feel of Ava.

I presented the concepts to the CMO and we discussed each one in-depth pinpointing what we liked and disliked about them. From this we narrowed down the options to three preferred routes to develop further. Following a round of amends, the top two routes were presented to the board who unanimously agreed on their preferred route. A darker, more sophisticated look was chosen, inspired by the higher end high street brands such as John Lewis, which gave a feeling of quality and trust.

The branding concept was chosen in just over a week, with the remaining week and a half spent on creating the web page designs ready for build.

Later development

In September, the business refined it’s target audience, service offering and business plan. It now focused solely on care at home services and was undertaking a full system redesign, including plans to launch an app. The target audience age range was also extended to include 35+ year olds.

During the design process for the prototypes, I decided to review the brand colours to be more contemporary to appeal to the younger audience, but without losing those darker parts of the palette that gave Ava market stand out.

The peach became a gold to add more sophistication, while the blush background colour became a soft grey. A secondary colour palette was also developed and brand guidelines created.

Outcome

Despite the limited timeframe, the branding came out with a distinct difference to the company’s competitors and was very well received internally. The adverts placed on Facebook were successful in driving traffic to the site however, the analytics found minimal differences in exploration and conversion rates. The final version of the brand remains untested due to company closure.

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