Apothic is wine brand from the E. & J. Gallo portfolio of wines that aims to incite passion by challenging convention. Apothic wanted a website that would do the same, as well as increase engagement with their target millennial audiences.
With the coming launch of a new marketing campaign, Apothic needed to streamline the in-store discovery process to increase product awareness and conversions. For current customers, Apothic needed new ways to engage with their base beyond Instagram posts and newsletters.
Aligning the site with user shopping behaviors both in-store and online was crucial, as was the need to allow for brand exploration beyond the primary Apothic Red varietal. The new site needed to facilitate the following:
Working with our content strategist, we began by mapping out various user journeys for our new target audiences:
Embodying the lifestyle of the marketing campaign, these users are early adopters of the next trend, a handy trait when promoting lesser known varietals. These users would also explore other branded content such as recipes or blog posts to understand the brand.
This group is looking for a reasonable entry into the next tier of wines. Generally use to purchasing wines under $20, these users don't necessarily expect high-end taste, but will do research to make sure that they're buying a quality produce.
The opposite of our "Premium Wine Explorer," this group mostly consumes beer and liquor products and will look for a low-price entry into the wine category. They are more likely to buy through marketing efforts rather than previous experience with wines or the brand.
After identifying the design requirements, we created low fidelity wireframes that lined up with our different use cases. Leveraging the blog content throughout the site, the "Millenial Status Seeker" and "Premium Wine Explorer" user journeys were fairly similar, with our "Customers from Other Alcohol Categories" group being the exception.
Finally comes the easy part where we applied visual design and motion to align with the new marketing campaign's aesthetic while retaining some of the familiar elements of the previous iteration of the site that worked and resonated with the brand.
