Gap Inc.
2019
Project Overview
Summary
Gap brands (except Old Navy) were underperforming in terms of customer gift spending during December.
Project Goal
To help customers feel confident in purchasing meaningful gifts for a person they care about.
Tactic
Using e-gift cards as a solution to win gifting.
Result
Short-, mid-, and long-term strategies centered on discoverability, incentives, personalization features, and highly visual gifting experience.
My Contributions
Planned, conducted, and synthesized all of the research.
I helped formulate a business strategy based on research insights. Then, I engaged and attracted internal partners interested in the following steps.
Made prototypes and a survey to test cross-brand customers on personalizing e-gift cards.
Art directed the UX/UI of the e-gift card/donation site.
Provided assets to Banana Republic to amend the main website to promote an experiment.
Team Collaborations
Just Me (Sr UX Designer) at first.
Me + Dir Product Mgmt
Me + Dir Product Mgmt + Sr Strategy Analyst
Me + Dir Product Mgmt + Dir Store Ops + Manager Payment Operations
Me + Dir Product Mgmt + Dir Store Ops + Manager Payment Operations + VP GM Online
Me + Dir Product Mgmt + Dir Store Ops + Manager Payment Operations + VP GM Online + Dir Web Production + Dev team. External: + Sr Dir Strategic Partnerships + UX Designer
Strategy Process
The Problem
The innovation team had done some earlier research, and one provocation that came from it was, "How do we give confidence around gift-giving?" My task was to answer this ambiguous question with very little to go on.
Framing the Design Challenge
How might we help customers, who don’t know what gifts to buy, feel confident in purchasing a gift for a person they care about?
Ultimate Impact
Increase personalization.
Interviews
Qualitative interviews aimed at understanding the behavior and psychology behind gift giving and receiving. Uncovering the go-to’s, the rituals, the values, the needs, the friction, and the hacks.
Ages 24 - 72
California
Missouri
Georgia
Right out of college
Stay at home moms
Full time employees
Retired
Secondary Research
Digging deeper into stories, solutions, studies, business, technologies, disruptions, and innovations that drive gifting.
The Atlantic | Fashion Blogs | Gap Inc. Internal Reports (Strategy, Marketing, Case Studies) | Social Psychology | YouTube
Synthesis
Gifting is highly emotionally charged. It is an extension of the relationship bolstered by self-gratification. Budget has little meaning when buying the right gift.
Gift Giving
Gifting begins with a reason (trigger).
GETTING IT DONE
Not a close relationship.
Being told what to get.
You have to get something.
Timing is tight.
GETTING IT RIGHT
Incredibly personal.
Truly knowing the recipient.
An exclusive feeling.
Highly desired.
"Well, when you know someone well enough, you just see it and go, 'perfect'."
-Anette M.
“I’ll just run into the mall and go somewhere really quick. But then I feel bad because its not putting in as much time thinking about it.”
-Sophia C.
Less...
Meaningful
Effort
Thought
More...
Meaning
Effort
Thought
Framework
The strength of a relationship (close or distant) correlates with the amount of personalization and sentiment in the gift.
Provocations
How will we win December through gifting? It starts with workshopping, brainstorming, creating insight statements, asking our HMW’s, and other questions.
How might we make a gift card more personal and strengthen a relationship?
Personalized videos or pictures show up on social media feeds.
How might we help more people “get it right” when choosing apparel?
The New Gift Guide displays trending items for a given profile. Match with Bright Members and True Fit measurements.
Market Research
My director and I looked at internal reports and the Deloitte 2018 Holiday Report, US Census.
Holiday gifting is a
$82B opportunity
in December
Gift Cards
9%
Other Gifts
25%
Non-Gift
66%
Anticipated average spending during the holiday season:
$1,536 per person average
2018 Holiday Season
Top types of planned gifts to GIVE
Top types of desired gifts to RECEIVE
We then utilized our internal Customer Insights team and the customer research they did to establish how Gap brands fell in with the idea of "Gifting."
% of December purchases identified as a "gift"
What Customer's are Saying
"There was nothing unique about the styles"
-About Banana Republic
"Nothing stood out to me that I needed or wanted"
-About Gap
The Product Challenge
Customers are not imspired by out brands style or quality.
The Assortment Challenge
Lack of a range or prices. Not many stocking stuffer items.
Gift Card Research
Looking at the Gifting research and Marketing data, e-gift cards emerged as a way to empower personalization and feasibly attain an incremental lift in sales. Below are the most relevant elements that proved that the needle could be moved.
Spending More Money with E-Gift Cards
75% of shoppers spend more than the value on the card.
Of that 59% of customers have a $59 AVG overspend.
Giving and Receiving E-Gift Cards
55% are interested in giving and 67% are interested in receiving a digital gift card.
Receiving: especially 69% of millennials 18-34
Giving: especially 67% of millennials 18-34
E-Gift Cards via Social Platforms
18- to 34-year-olds would be interested I, 60% receiving and 54% giving, through a social platform like Facebook.
Thinking of the Recipient
30% purchased an e-gift specifically with the recipient in mind because they knew the recipient would like it. Speed and ease of delivery were the most important factors influencing their purchase.
Personalization Incentives
50% of respondents agree that holiday-specific gift cards and personalized messaging would get them to purchase more gift cards.
Mother’s Day in the Billions
Consumers plan to spend $2.5 billion on gift cards (45% surveyed) and $2.1 billion on clothing (37% surveyed).
“My thoughts are is that [gift cards are] lazy. Even if it is something that I’ll definitely used. I’m one of those people that appreciates when someone does put some thought into it.”
-Anette M.
“Gift cards are a last resort for me… They feel kind of impersonal, even though I myself love gift cards.”
-Maggie W.
“I love receiving gift cards because I can get what I want. I just don’t like giving them because it doesn’t feel that creative.”
-Courtney W.
“A gift card: it’s not as personal item per se. But it is an item that gives them freedom to choose what they like. You don’t have to worry about them wanting to return something.”
-James M.
Competative Research
Top Gift Card Companies
Ranked by CashStar criteria.
Impactful Personalization
Innovative designs for e-gift cards that excited our user testers.
CashStar
Gif Animation with Audio
Victoria's Secret
Gif Animation with Audio
Amazon
Video Animation with Audio
Personalization - Gap Brands vs. Amazon
Conducted a qual survey with six participants around the best e-gift card touchpoints.
Concepting
After distilling the research and creating our partnerships, it was time to get tangible and learn from making. I iterated keeping in mind the needs of the customer around personalization, generally considering the technology that can build it, and balancing what we identified as metrics that would move the needle.
Sketching it Out
Quick Instagram Prototype
I wanted to test some assumptions around personalization and video. I reached out into my community of friends and family for a lo-fi prototype. They thought it was real!
Forging Partnerships
Part of the challenge was finding brand partners interested in leveraging this research and making something happen. Our work eventually led us to a division within Banana Republic and the Stores Engagement Team—both internal teams within Gap Inc.
Prototypes & Testing
To learn more, I created assumptions to test and validate. I wanted to move forward at low risk, time, and money but with meaningful learnings. Testing to see if they were ideas that provided value to the stakeholders.
Survey & Prototypes
I created the questions and worked with a research partner to conduct a survey of 2200 cross-brand customers centered on e-gift cards. We also tested personalization touchpoints with mid-fi prototypes I made using Sketch, with some plugin modifications, and InVision.
Message + Theme
83% Liked
70% of total like
votes “liked a lot”
Message + Animation
78% Liked
62% of total like
votes “liked a lot”
Audio Recording
77% Liked
63% of total like
votes “liked a lot”
Video Recording
73% Liked
60% of total like
votes “liked a lot”
Partnerships
Different methods of personalization and the e-gift card resonated within our test to move forward.
A Company Divided - The Capability Challenge
Building out the personlaization features, even to test, would take more tech and financial resources than Banana Republic had or were willing to spend.
Gap Inc. was in process of dividing its company so these resources for all brands and departments were not available.
Partnership Potential
Facebook and Instagram are social platforms with a strong built-in audience. Their product's contain built in features that Gap Inc. could utilize to deliver more personalized e-gift cards.
Birthday Personalization Features
I created features of personalization for e-gift cards in February 2019.
Facebook launched its birthday personalization features in May 2019.
Built-in Donation Feature
Both Facebook and Instagram have the ability to add a donation widget to any message. I wanted to use an e-gift card widget and do the same thing.
New Direction
Direction Change
All personalization feature tests had nothing to do with donations. However, leadership saw what Instagram was doing with donations and thought this would be a good approach to increasing gift card purchases.
Thier Plan
When a gift card is purchased, the customer is notified that Banana Republic will donate 10% of the total card amount to CARE, on behalf of the customer. CARE is a non-profit dedicated to “save lives, defeat poverty, and achieve social justice.” This plan would start on Giving Tuesday and run for two weeks.
Desired Results
The number of e-gift cards bought, and the dollar amount spent on them would significantly increase.
Financials
Our external e-gift card partner will cover the donation percentage (10%) and fulfillment costs. Banana Republic feels it will increase card purchases and revenue by 5% on Giving Tuesday.
The Challenge - Mitigating Risk
Running this plan would cost money, time, and resources that the company was already stretched with. I suggested conducting a survey to mitigate risk and see if this donation aspect would incentivize buying e-gift cards. That way, we'd be informed of the public's general reaction, and we could set up KPIs to judge this endeavor.
Leadership ignored the suggestion and moved forward with the plan.
Effort to Impact Chart
Designing the Site
I delivered visual assets to promote and link customers to the e-gift card experiment. These assets were planned for the main navigation menu and the gift card landing page.
Art Directing
Partnering with our external vendor’s UX team, I art directed the e-gift card purchasing site.
New Direction Results
"There is nothing conclusive that this program drove sales." -Gift Card Management Team.
Despite my effort to instate one, without an A/B test or any other gauge, there was no way to get accurate metrics about whether this experiment worked or not.
Instead, the success was assembling the backend effort so that there is an infrastructure to try again with an A/B test "next time."
My Suggested Next Steps
Short-term: Can do Now
Make gift cards easier to find on the website
Utilize promotions, discounts and loyalty incentives
More faceplate designs
Additional suggested messages
Seen in Ideation 2.0
Mid-term: With Vendor Support
Use “story telling” (Amazon-esque) animations as another visual for e-gift cards in addition to a personalized messaging.
Seen in Ideation 2.0
Long-term: 2020
Audio recording and uploading of audio files in addition to a personalized messaging.
Video recording via Facebook and Instagram. Utilize all of the features provided such as occasion themed templates, adding music, filters, stickers, gifs, and text.
Creating a “Thank you” capability on the recipient’s end.
Full screen experience across platforms. Increasing the visual experience would add more to the level of feeling and personalization.
Seen in Ideation 2.0
Seen in Ideation 2.0
Great Minds Think Alike
In June 2019, Facebook launched its own version of the same idea to personalize birthday celebrations by allowing users to add and send gift cards.
