How I led a team to create a million-dollar prototype
I routinely scan quarterly updates and competitor earnings calls to identify neglected business areas. In 2020, I noticed that Advertising and Sponsorship were facing significant headwinds, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the increasing regulation of data privacy.
With cross-departmental visibility as an Experience Design Lead, I saw an opportunity to bring enhanced experiences to users and new formats for storytelling in collaboration with our brand partners.
My team and I developed an innovative advertising offering that could fund quality journalism and deliver high margin, repeatable revenue for the business.
Strategic thinking:
Helping teams get from 0 to 1
As The Guardian’s Experience Lead, I designed and reviewed solutions across the organisation and had a deep understanding of the role The Guardian played in people’s lives. This allowed me to clearly identify the most effective way to solve their user needs.
To stay up-to-date on the company’s business goals and opportunities for innovation in the media industry, I closely followed quarterly updates, industry earnings calls and news within the space.
I became increasingly known for my ability to:
• generate creative solutions
• anticipate challenges
• develop contingency plans
• demonstrate and realise potential of an opportunity
• get the funding and support needed to launch
Getting buy-in.
Gaining momentum.
To secure resource and initiate the innovation project, I met editorial and sponsorship account teams. Each conversation built on the last - cycling between active listening and pitching emphasised sessions.
By highlighting relevant past successes, I built trust and managed expectations. By addressing frustrations and concerns in our plans, we gained support for the mission.
The sequence of discussion and presentations was critical for alignment, momentum and ensuring key people felt a sense of ownership from the start. This provided the basis for a strong case to request Product and Engineering resources.
Reporting, analysis and insight:
Ok, what do we know?
User Research and User Help collated and summarised existing insights and helped identify editorial categories where users were most comfortable with ads.
Conducting expert interviews, I gathered insights and concerns from key stakeholders in Editorial, Accounts, and Production.
Our data and business partners provided reports on user behavior on the platform, market trends, and competitor data to identify signals and health metrics for monitoring and benchmarking.
Due to the user research and brand safety, I selected Fashion, Lifestyle and Sports as the focus areas for the project.
Creating space:
Big ideas don’t fit on sticky notes
“Formulaic sticky note sessions stifle creativity and leave designers, engineers and business stakeholders uninterested”
Open and ongoing discussion: I created space for team members to share ideas and feedback throughout the process, ensuring that everyone felt heard and valued.
Alternatives to pressured workshops: Contributors were able to participate in idea generation at any time, to accommodate different working styles and preferences.
Hypotheses and assumptions: I provided ways for contributors to share ideas as long-form text, screenshots and links to references.
Developing ideas:
Collaboration and leadership
We created concept slides to showcase each submitted idea. In contrast with dot voting/ scoring exercises, this allowed people to discuss, critique and further develop submissions.
The additional context and commentary highlighted confidence levels and appropriate methods of testing. We worked collaboratively to draft design and research briefs, which could then be prioritised and assigned to team members.
Reframing the opportunity:
Motivating the team to think bigger
To encourage the team to be more entrepreneurial, I reframed the client offering from a product to a service. This involved developing a modular system that would allow us to offer unique editorial experiences without the need to build from the ground up each time.
To motivate the designers and front-end engineers, I created a mockup that helped them visualise how far they could take their designs. This shifted them from presenting designs based on The Guardian’s standard editorial grid layouts with brand badge slots to showcasing immersive experiences powered by Google Web Stories and Svelte.
Project management:
Delegate. Execute. Review. Adjust.
To manage a small team effectively, it was important to be as lean as possible and limit our overheads. During the development and delivery phases, I collaborated with an Agile Lead to:
• Establish a healthy schedule of reviews and sponsor updates
• Develop a release plan
• Keep RACI maps up to date
• Set and manage stakeholder expectations
• Monitor progress and make adjustments as needed
• Test and validate deliverables
Holding space:
Fostering high-quality work
Cross-functional teams over the years complained that they often didn't have enough time to explore, be creative and ‘do their work’.
To ensure the team had the headspace to develop concepts they believed in, we carved out focused working hours, days or weeks.
Meetings were opt-in. We worked on presentations collaboratively, shared agendas and notes within 24 hours of each meeting.
We trusted one another to represent the group and the mission.
On-time and on-budget:
Delivering on promises
We committed to providing the Advertising sales team with a new offering to take to market, validated with users, clients and The Guardian’s internal Sponsorship Governance Group. We provided assets, insights and testimonials, in time for their relaunched sales.
40+ prototypes user-tested
15x client interviews
3x presentation routes for sales teams
Project outcomes:
Enhanced Sponsorship
The Advertising sales team selected the “Sustainable Fashion Magazine” prototype as part of their updated enhanced sponsorship offering to brand partners.
They met with AEG, Apple, Google, Mercedes, Omnicom, Paypal, Rolex, TikTok, Unilever, Vinted and the feedback was positive. As a result, the minimum campaign spend was raised to $1 million.
The team went on to create award-winning partnerships with the Feast magazine and Grace Dent’s Comfort Eating podcast.