Company Innovation Page (v.1)
GOAL
Refresh the company’s innovation story and messaging, and then update the webpage accordingly.
While the company’s purpose message mentions innovation, the website itself wasn’t doing the best job of telling its innovation story. The company had also recently hired a new chief innovation officer, so the innovation messaging and story was due for a refresh. The new messaging needed a strong narrative, and that narrative needed to be distributed throughout the website starting with the Innovation page.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Product makers and packagers in multiple industries, as well as investors.
CONCEPT
During a visit to the packaging industry’s largest trade show, I spent a good deal of time on the floor listening to prospects talking to account executives and SMEs. A vast majority of their questions focused on two topics: sustainability and automation. Additionally, there were a couple of products that received the interest, and those were products displaying some of the latest materials and design innovation. The trip was valuable in helping me understand two things: how the company’s innovation shows up in the industry and where it intersects with their audience.
One of the products getting a lot of attention was a paper wrap for beverage cans a bottles, one that could replace shrink wrap. People couldn’t believe they could pick up a 24-pack by the paper itself. Another product was a paper handle for bundled gallons of juice or cooking oil. People picked up both gallons by the handle very carefully as if it might break. They were surprised they could grab them and swing them around. That served as the inspiration for the new narrative that I aimed at focusing on how the company is pushing the boundaries of what paper can do.
WORDING
In playing with the wording, I chose “stretching the limits” of paper because it alluded to making it act like plastic, and then I also chose to include “surprise” since we could use the phrase “Be surprised by paper” for product videos and social.
PAGE FLOW
The initial paragraph on the webpage is a shorter version of the overall narrative in the new messaging. The sections that follow support the value the company brings to packaging innovation. As this is a “version one,” the next version will feature a new video on company innovation (in production) that will replace the current sound bite from the CIO and an additional section with a new graphic depicting the innovation process.
The third section was written with the suggestion of the four areas being a tabbed section, graphic icons on flip cards, or drop-down reveals, but I wasn’t involved with the design of the page.