UPSELL & RETENTION
Premium Persuasion
Leveraging Black Friday to upsell users and drive subscription growth to ITVX Premium.
OVERVIEW
Black Friday Boosting Revenue
Faced with the challenge of losing 110,000 subscribers due to the discontinuation of ITV Catch Up on Amazon Prime Video, we led a critical two-week campaign at the end of 2023 to mitigate it. Our Black Friday initiative achieved 136,000 redemptions and generated an estimated £5.7 million in revenue. By aligning the campaign with off-product promotion and offering a compelling £1/month deal for the first two months, we saw the highest Stripe conversion rates since ITVX's launch and increased user interactions on CTV and web platforms. Leading the design team and collaborating with stakeholders, I emphasised data-driven design and cross-departmental collaboration, skilfully adapting and optimising existing components to align design with business objectives.
IMPACT
£5.7 million
revenue generation
136,000
offer redemptions
125%
increase in conversion
About ITV
ITV, the UK's largest commercial broadcaster and streamer, launched ITVX in late 2022 as the freshest streaming service offering both advertiser-funded content for free and an ad-free subscription tier. As a modern extension of ITV's traditional broadcasting, ITVX aims to deliver a wide range of content across various platforms including web, mobile devices, connected TVs, and gaming consoles, thereby reaching a broader audience
Roles & Responsibilities
ROLE
Head of Product Design
Leading Growth, E-commerce, and New Value (GENV) initiatives, focusing primarily on:
Acquisition & Activation
Upsell & Retention
New Value Propositions
Partnerships and Distribution
TEAM COMPOSITION
The GENV Product Design team consisted of:
1 Lead Product Designer
3 Senior Product Designers
3 Product Designers
1 UX Writer
1 UX Researcher
UPSELL & RETENTION TEAM
Collaboration model:
Product Management
Design
Engineering
Data
Commercial
Editorial
Marketing
Legal
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Leadership and Team Management: Led the design team, managing timelines and resources to ensure timely and high-quality deliverables.
Strategic Planning: Developed and executed the design strategy for the Black Friday campaign, aligning it with overall business goals.
Cross-Departmental Collaboration: Coordinated with teams esternal to the streaming org to ensure a cohesive and unified campaign approach.
User-Centric Design: Employed data-driven design principles to create a compelling promotional offer that resonated with users and improved conversion rates.
Performance Monitoring: Employed data-driven design principles to create a compelling promotional offer that resonated with users and improved conversion rates.
Feedback and Iteration: Instituted a system of regular reviews and feedback to foster a responsive and flexible development environment.
PROBLEM STATEMENT & STRATEGY
Recovering Lost Subscribers
A summer sale earlier in the year, featuring a minimal discount and limited marketing both on and off product, resulted in poor performance with only 7,000 redemptions. This highlighted the need for a more effective promotional strategy. With subscriber revenue crucial to ITV's £750 million 2026 digital target and a loss of 110,000 subscribers from the discontinuation of ITV Catch Up on Amazon Prime Video, we needed to recover these losses before the end of the year. By capitalising on the Black Friday promotion period and celebrating ITVX's first anniversary since launch, we aimed to enhance promotion visibility and test pricing strategies, ensuring marketing alignment and creating a seamless user experience during the promotional period.
BUSINESS GOALS
• Grow our UK subscriber base significantly.
• Recover lost subscribers from the discontinuation of ITV Catch Up on Amazon Prime Video.
• Evaluate and better understand ITVX Premium price elasticity.
CHALLENGES
• Stakeholder conflicts over homepage hero real estate between commercial and editorial teams.
• Co-ordinating marketing assets across various channels with differing deadlines for a consistent message.
• Release deadlines for product are earlier than for CRM so campaign alignment can be difficult to achieve.
STRATEGIC APPROACH
• Leverage peak retail period ‘Black Friday’ for a campaign to capitalise on consumer expectations for deals.
• Create a compelling heavily-discounted offer to attract subscribers.
• Promote the offer through various touch points to maximise reach.
DESIGN PROCESS & DECISION-MAKING
Research and Insights
Insights from the summer sale campaign significantly shaped our Black Friday strategy. During the summer sale, the half price discount of £2.99/month for the first two months, plus a 7-day free trial, failed to resonate with our audience. It was not perceived as compelling enough, prompting us to conduct further market research to understand price sensitivity better. This research led to a revised offer for the Black Friday campaign: £1/month for the first two months plus a 7-day free trial.
Key learnings included the need for more impactful marketing, as the summer sale's promotion failed to stand out from regular branding and lacked visibility. Additionally, customer awareness was low due to the promotion's placement further down the homepage or on the upsell page, which required navigation to access. This emphasised the necessity for prime real estate within the app for promotional offers.
Extensive research into user behaviour and Black Friday shopping preferences informed our decision to straddle the promotion a week either side of Black Friday, running from 13 November to 4 December. By starting early and explicitly highlighting Black Friday, we aimed to create urgency and distinguish our offer from competitors.
Ideation and Validation
Given the necessity for early submission of promotional banners, we collaborated closely with the marketing and creative teams to design banners that closely aligned with the proposed campaign imagery. This proactive approach allowed us to secure approvals before submission, ensuring that the banners were consistent with the overall campaign's look and feel.
Simultaneously, we engaged with the Legal team to ensure all legal disclaimers and promotional claims were accurate, visible, and accessible to users. This collaboration was vital in maintaining compliance and building user trust. By integrating these elements early in the design process, we validated that the promotional materials were not only visually appealing but also legally sound and user friendly.
Solution and Execution
To maximise the impact of our Black Friday campaign, we aggressively promoted the offer across ITVX's platforms. We created a custom homepage hero for Premium, traditionally used only for AVOD content, positioned in the third carousel slot with promotional imagery of the three key titles and a link to the upsell page across CTV, mobile, and web. The decision to include this in the hero slot was thoroughly debated between the Commercial and Editorial teams. Leveraging our research and insights, we successfully negotiated its inclusion for the second week of the two-week campaign period. Despite its potential, the slot placement led to fairly low engagement, however this was consistent with recent content in the same slot. This suggests that a more prominent slot could achieve up to 3.5 times higher engagement for future campaigns.
We also used the homepage disruptor rail with updated copy and visuals to capture user attention and promote ITVX Premium's benefits and content. Additionally, promotional banners on program pages increased conversion rates, especially from the "I’m A Celebrity…" page during its new season launch. The "Choose Your Plan" page was updated with the new price and benefits, highlighting the monthly plan as the selected choice.
We enhanced upsell pathways on CTV and mobile platforms and strategically used deep linking techniques to streamline the subscription process. Collaborating with tech partners like LG and Roku, we refined user journeys from promotional spots directly into the upsell process, significantly enhancing the campaign's effectiveness and ensuring a seamless user experience.
OUTCOMES & IMPACT
Measuring Success
The Black Friday campaign for ITVX was a success, demonstrating the effectiveness of our strategic approach. We achieved 136,000 redemptions, surpassing our target of 90,000 and offsetting the projected loss of 110,000 subscribers. The campaign generated an estimated £5.7 million, highlighting the success of the pricing strategy and appeal of the offer. We also saw a notable improvement in Stripe conversion rates, reaching the highest levels since ITVX's launch, indicating the effectiveness of our enhanced upsell pathways and deep linking techniques.
Engagement metrics showed increased visibility and user interactions across various channels, with significant upticks on CTV and mobile platforms. The integration of promotional banners, a custom homepage hero, and clearer benefits of Premium played a crucial role in this success.
Overall, the campaign achieved its goals and provided valuable insights for future efforts, reinforcing the importance of targeted, insight-led strategies in driving substantial user engagement and revenue growth.
IMPACT
125%
increase in conversion
offer redemptions
£5.7 million
revenue generation
136,000
“Chloe has had an incredible impact on design at ITVX, the ways of working that have been introduced and her dedication to design excellence is clear in how GENV turn up and represent their area so solidly. She's carved a very strong path for her team.”
Marianne Ashton-Booth
Head of Design Systems
Fancy another?
Systems for Sports
Tackling a design system suitable for global sports streaming with TNT Sports.
Magic in Motion
Reimagining the role of Motion Design for product innovation in kids entertainment
Bringing Eurosport Home
Redesigning Eurosport Player for the at-home, connected TV experience.