How to create exclusive brand day operation activities?

How to design a good operation plan ? It is essential to grasp current hot topics, understand the purpose of the project, and observe user behavior.

1. Introduction

With the comprehensive upgrade of "Ping An Pocket Finance" to "Ping An Digital Pocket", the starting point is changed to customers and scenarios, and the service targets are upgraded from customers to Internet users. In order to attract new customers, convert, activate and retain customers on the Digital Pocket Platform, it is necessary to create periodic regular activities and establish the concept of “Platform Exclusive Day”.

The Internet's rapidly changing pace and real-time user data feedback require designers to be agile and high-quality. So, how does an operational activity go from prototype to launch through design methods?

2. Project Analysis

1. Objectives

The main purpose of this project is to attract new customers and promote activation, while also building the brand image and enhancing the brand value of the Digital Pocket APP in the long term.

Attracting new users : Combined with product functions during user participation in activities. It not only creates activity gameplay, promotion, and differentiation, but also improves user retention and acquires new users.

Activation promotion : Increase the number of existing active users, leverage product functional advantages and usage behaviors, and drive the activity index of the entire product.

After understanding the needs of this operation, clarifying the purpose and business goals of this operation, you can provide creative direction in both design plan and visual style.

2. Users

As Digital Pocket APP’s customers become Internet users, it is necessary to combine the characteristics of Internet users, understand user characteristics, and design and convey the final effect so that it can be closer to the purpose of the activity.

Digital Pocket APP is a corporate product under Ping An Bank, and its users are mainly employees within the company. The activity needs to reflect the brand characteristics of "Ping An Bank" and be designed in a style that suits the preferences of white-collar workers.

3. Insights

Observing my colleagues and friends around me, almost everyone has some blind boxes on their desk. In the blind box stores in major shopping malls, students, young people and white-collar workers are all busy selecting their favorite series of blind boxes, which makes people feel excited and stimulated.

In fact, blind boxes have not only become popular in recent years. Looking back on the cards, models, and stationery collected when we were young, they are almost the childhood memories of every person born in the 1980s and 1990s.

Blind boxes use the Pandora effect and uncertainty in psychology to firmly grasp the user's psychology, stimulate the buyers' nerves, and attract buyers to want to buy it and open it to see what is behind it. Moreover, the ultimate goal of the "hidden version" is set, and the extremely low winning rate of 0.69% is seen among various sharers on Douyin. It is not a rare thing to become one. Everyone can draw the hidden one, and the lucky ones can win it for the first time and become the "Emperor of Europe". The mentality of believing that one can also become the "Emperor of Europe" makes people eager to try.

The high-value rewards of winning the "hidden edition" are even more exciting. While showing off, you can also benefit from the growth of multiples of the purchase price.

When blind box model thinking is combined with online operational activities, the curiosity can achieve the purpose of "attracting new users". The unknown nature and high price of the event prizes can also increase user "activation" and increase user stickiness of the event .

4. Design strategy

Based on the insight into the blind box phenomenon, how to convert the offline purchasing experience into an online activity while reflecting the authenticity and interactivity of the real purchasing experience, and also establishing the brand image of "Ping An Bank Digital Pocket APP". In response to this, the design team members conducted the following strategic research.

1) User behavior observation

The main offline purchasing channels for blind boxes are: physical stores and self-service machines , among which most users purchase them in stores.

① Physical store

Observe that after entering the store, users first look around to find the product series they are interested in. When they find a series they like, they carefully examine the display samples and then start purchasing blind boxes.

Most users pick it up and shake it to listen to the sound inside the box and weigh the blind box. If they are not satisfied with the blind box in their hands, they will replace it and perform the series of actions again. Once you pick a blind box that you like, you’ll make the purchase.

Among them, some buyers will secretly pinch the blind box, and the store clerk will stop this behavior after discovering it. After users pay, they usually open the blind box immediately in the store to check whether it is the style they like.

② Self-service machine

It is easier to buy from a self-service machine than from a physical store. After the user browses the blind box series in the display cabinet and purchases and pays for the style, the self-service machine will take out the blind box directly from the display cabinet to the exit window. After the light flashes, the door will open and the user can take out the purchased blind box.

2) Role-playing

Buy Boxes for Designers

① Physical store

After experiencing the purchasing process in a physical store, the designer discovered that the reason users shook the boxes was that the same series of blind boxes had different design styles, and the sounds were different when shaken, but the styles could not be distinguished. Because the blind box comes with weighted coins, you can’t tell the difference even by weighing it with your hands. When you try to pinch the blind box with your hands, you can clearly feel some of the outlines due to the different designs. Of course, the shop assistant stopped him.

② Self-service machine

Compared with physical stores, the interactive fun is reduced, but being able to see the blind boxes you purchased being selected in the display cabinet and the light effect when the hatch opens makes people feel a sense of ritual.

3) Behavioral analysis

Users buy blind boxes not only because of the Pandora effect and the single psychological phenomenon of uncertainty, but also because of the interaction during offline purchases, that is, the actions of "shaking", "weighing" and "pinching" increase the fun of purchase.

Therefore, converting these offline user behavior experiences into online designs can also allow users to feel the real joy of the purchasing experience.

3. Design

1. Brainstorm

Design team members are brainstorming

After the direction of the design strategy is determined, it is combined with the previous project analysis and user research. Through brainstorming, keywords are extracted and finally the design direction is confirmed.

2. Design conclusion

1) Interaction solution design

• Element extraction: By combining the real-life form design method, the self-service machine form in life is created, the operation activity theme and design direction are combined, and the key forms are extracted as the main design elements.
• Event gimmick: Create an atmosphere for the event, set a countdown preheat for the event and a limit on the number of blind boxes. Every time a blind box is collected, the corresponding value on the event homepage will decrease. Warm up the event and create a festive feeling for the "event day".
• Fun of the activity: When the user clicks to select a blind box, they can shake the phone to make different sounds and vibrations, and Toast will remind the user of the chance of hidden grand prizes; when the user long presses the blind box or clicks multiple times, a "shop assistant" will appear to "stop" the user from damaging the blind box.
• Brand image: Promote the Digital Pocket APP mascot, regularly update the mascot's different series of blind box styles, establish the brand image and maintain freshness.
• Arouse interest: The blind box prizes will be updated every week, and high-value "hidden gifts" will be given away. The blind box prizes are combined with the corporate rights of the Digital Pocket APP. Through the event, "paid" rights can be given away for free, and there are also physical prizes and monetary gifts. Lower the threshold for event participation and increase user acquisition, retention and activation.

2) Visual design

• Color tone: Use the brand color of "Ping An Bank" to create an "Orange Brand Day". Warm colors also give users a lively and cheerful visual feeling.
• Elements: The C4D modeling of the blind box self-service machine style has a sense of texture and space, while adding animations, lighting effects design or other animation effects in blind box purchases to make it more eye-catching.
• Fonts: Through the shape, style and connection of fonts, the design is in line with the theme of the event. The designer will collect the forms for basic construction, then draw the fonts through the software, adjust the fonts, and create visual effects to make the font expression of the event theme more vivid and vivid.
• Design atmosphere: Using the amusement park as the design background, create a cheerful and lively atmosphere scene exclusively for the "Brand Day".

4. Final

After the above project analysis and design execution, a very clear design plan has been obtained. I hope that the ideas in this article can help you maximize the role of design in the design of operational activities and create excellent operational plans.

Author: WOWdesign

Source: WOWdesign