The largest 4/20 of the century

This might have operationally been a bit easier if 4/20 wasn't already our biggest day of the year. We saw the largest volume in traffic and sales on this day. Unknown to us at the time was the growth we would experience this year as well.

TALK FAST, SELL FASTER
That's how our sales team operates. They had already created an initial concept and started to circulate the design with exec's and a few potential sponsors. Engineers quickly developed that concept into a prototype on our site.

PART OF A TACTICAL TEAM
Once I saw the prototype, pictured here, I quickly volunteered to lead the design efforts for the livestream. The prototype felt off brand and bare. It also banked on ad positions that would only work for desktop. There was some simple yet significant changes we could make here. I would join a team of about 15 that would meet day and night over the next 4 weeks. None of us had built an experience like this before.

● FLOWS & METRICS

Understanding the user journey and what success was

We switched hosting vendors about three times during the first two weeks. I was involved in all meetings with these vendors and had a deep understanding of what each vendor could and could not deliver on for the streaming experience. This along with other unknowns meant that while I had an ideal design experience in my head, it would have to flex in the coming weeks.

• Brand Awareness - Page Views, Avg time on page
• Growth - New Accounts, DAU
• Order volume & key engagements - AOV, GMV
• Advertising - Revenue, Engagements

● The player

Front and Center

We wanted folks to stay and enjoy the stream. To do this I scaled the size of the player and let it occupy the left and center position of our site, on desktop. The mobile experience was a unique challenge in that our vendor could not support native full screen. This meant we had to do some clever css to grow when in landscape mode.

BRAND AWARENESS
One of the first changes I made was the theme. Knowing that our audience would be at home a light theme felt wrong. So, I created a dark theme to compliment the environment of our viewers. Additionally, I added subtle brand touches to compliment the theme of the event our marketing team designed.

● The Ad Units

Simple yet significant

The initial ads were flanking the player. This was distracting and scaled awkwardly across screen sizes. Instead there would be two display ads, the top ad unit would be above the player on mobile and at the top right on desktop. The second ad was positioned below the fold at the end of a content scroll area.

● The Content Area

Within reach but out of the way

This would house all the interactive content. I moved this up from below the video player and to the right of the player on desktop. This made it so people could engage with our content while still enjoying the stream. Several tabs were also created to house the various types of content that the business wanted to promote. The "promotions" tab was a last minute addition after several sponsors/talent expressed a desire to continue promoting after their set was over.