General Mills

As a staple in the consumer packaged goods sector, General Mills was looking for ways to enhance digital engagement with their customers, launch new products and lower printing costs across multiple divisions.

Role

  • UX Designer creating prototypes and mockups for new and existing products to integrate digital interaction and improve website experiences

  • UI Design to refresh online recipes to meet consumer needs and add sustainable value

  • Product and package design that improved efficiency to streamline production processes to swiftly launch new products into market to lower costs without sacrificing product quality

Tools

  • Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop for design assets, branding and mockups

  • Adobe Indesign for print and marketing campaigns

  • HTML/CSS for digital brand library to share assets

Betty Crocker Recipe Book Revamp

Over As a staple in the consumer packaged goods sector, General Mills was looking for ways to have better digital recipes. Sales were declining for the pocket recipes books sold in stores and printing costs were rising. Additional ways to search and find recipes was needed. A better digital experience, featuring seasonal ingredients and Betty Crocker products to increase engagement.

BEFORE

Betty Crocker Solutions

Meeting with internal teams, reviewing website analytics and analyzing consumer online reviews provided a roadmap to improve the customer experience with online recipes transitioning from printed magazines. Research showed new web layouts that featured seasonal product searches were needed. Consumers were searching for the ingredients first, and then for the recipes to match their ingredients. The consumer did not always know the the recipe name to search for and using ingredients on hand were common habits.

Using the monthly recipe cookbooks as a starting point, the website offered immediate access to trusted recipes as the amount of printed cookbooks decreased. To mimic printed themes consumers were used to, the web layouts were created to have feature landing pages of ingredients that would link to existing or new recipes. The new feature pages would attract new consumers who searched for ingredients first and recipes second. This added value to existing products by featuring at least two products that rotated out bi-weekly on the page banners. The feature pages would also provide a new way to introduce and launch new products from multiple departments to cross-market General Mills product lines.

Recipes also received new layouts that were easy to follow by highlighting steps for scan ability, photography was more dynamic to feature large ingredient shots and access to digital content improved the consumer experiences with modern web layouts as print sales declined that were available 24/7 online . Measurable web traffic created sustainable value to the Betty Crocker brand without sacrificing quality and improved consumer reviews as mobile use increased each year.

Wheaties Fuel Cereal Product Launch

Working with internal creative directors, designers, account managers and multiple General Mills teams, I was able to identify production gaps in the upcoming launch of Wheaties Fuel cereal to shorten production times. Working directly with print vendors, requirements upfront, I was able to modify prodution times by incorporating streamline pre-press and print production time to align vendors and internal teams with tight deadlines to meet the marketing launch date for NFL Superbowl week. Additionally, I generated UX/UI assets by building a digital library for external partners to provide consistent branding that gave the marketing team access 24/7 to create the printed and posted materials needed to successfully launch the new cereal line.

Wheaties Fuel Solutions

General Mills was constantly expanding or refreshing product lines as new divisions were acquired, new products were launched and existing categories were cross-marketed to keep up with user needs. Working with internal account managers, external vendors and multiple marketers, reliable timelines and project briefs detailing deliverables helped to create accountability and align all teams. Print testing with vendors yielded methods prior to product launch to streamline file building to cut down on costs and time, while still achieving quality CPGs. The new Wheaties Fuel launch met key stakeholder expectations to elevate the GM brand during Superbowl week with a new innovative cereal for a new demographic the company had not engaged before - the male athlete looking for a low carb healthy cereal. Digital brand guides, provided key assets to build marketing materials for multiple launch events for external and internal teams. And a successful product launch yielded additional explorations to extend the Wheaties Fuel cereal into existing food categories (snack and protein bars divisions) to create additional new products adding company value by introducing cross-market product options.