Occhio Digital Experience Strategy
Making a lofty brand idea actionable for the website and beyond.
Context
As a luxury lighting company, Occhio’s expertise lay in creating beautiful luminaires. Their digital presence did not yet match the warmth and values of the brand.
They asked AKQA Berlin to create a digital experience that would make it simple and desirable to “join a new culture of light.”
Approach
I worked within a core team of 4 (UX, UI, product management, and strategy) to deliver a research report and strategic vision for the experience. I was personally responsible for driving the project as a whole and the following individual pieces:
Customer research
Content audit of current site
Competitive analysis
Full-day client workshop
Experience pillars
Customer: It was clear that no one understood the term “culture of light,” despite the concept being the heart of the brand.
In our 13 conversations with a mixture of the three target audiences, even the folks who worked directly with Occhio (as a retail partner) or who had multiple luminaires had no idea what “culture of light” meant.
Content: Content on the website wasn’t serving customer across the whole customer journey.
The content audit revealed that Occhio's website was primarily focused on what the brand wanted to say rather than addressing customer needs. Most content was aimed at creating desire for products but provided minimal support for post-purchase engagement. The site lacked compelling invitations to visits stores or see Occhio luminaires in real life, missing an opportunity to connect digital and IRL experiences.
Competitive: The best digital experiences were accenting human interaction.
Through analyzing luxury digital experiences from brands like FarFetch, Sephora, and Cowboy, we discovered that digital was at its strongest when it enabled people to focus on providing the human touch. For example, FarFetch used digital tools to handle mundane tasks, freeing employees to be more present with customers.
Client Workshop: The clients loved the idea of a website that facilitated gathering and connection.
During our workshop, we learned that Occhio already loved any excuse to bring people together—and they wanted their website to reflect that. For their Berlin store opening, they had created such a vibrant atmosphere with food, champagne, and music that the police were called due to noise complaints from neighbors.
Recommendations
Experience Pillars
At the beginning of the project, I had no idea what “culture of light” meant. But after a few conversations, I had an aha moment. At its core, “culture of light” is like any subculture. Whether it’s food culture, coffee culture, or motorcycle culture, there’s one central thing that facilitates different experiences. In the same way, “culture of light” was about using light to facilitate experiences.
By looking at other subcultures, I realized that there are five main types of experiences that we could use light to facilitate.
The second image shows how the experience pillars were translated into content and additional IRL experiences.
Outcomes
Improved Metrics
Unfortunately, I only have access to one success metric. The good news is that it was a success! After our updates the homepage bounce rate dropped by 75%.