Mobile Upload UGC
A flexible UGC campaign builder allowing fans to submit and vote on content.
A flexible UGC campaign builder allowing fans to submit and vote on content.
With quarantine restrictions in place during the 2020 NBA restart, the Clippers had to reimagine fan engagement. Without home games or watch parties, the challenge was activating fans in a way that would capture the excitement of being in the arena on a game day. We partnered with our app developer, YinzCam to explore building an interactive feature that could be implemented quickly, in time for the restart.
Manager, Web Strategy | LA Clippers
UX/UI, Interaction Design, Product Management
June - July 2020
The return of sports was a good thing overall, but with games taking place under quarantine in Orlando, and being broadcasted on the national networks, it makes it difficult to give fans a differentiated and genuine brand experience.
The Clippers were looking for a ways to engage fans and bring the feeling of live game entertainment to the mobile app. The solution would need to be flexible, accounting for multiple format variations, and allow the marketing team to easily build activations that could be activated on a rotating schedule throughout the postseason.
Based on data collected during the season we could see an upward trend in app usage around and during game time, as fans are using their phones and checking social media in anticipation of the upcoming event.
Our assumption was that fans would be primed for engagement during this window was based on two factors. The first being that fans had already displayed significant intention and high brand affinity by downloading the app, and secondly, the data showed a general behavior to use the app to accompany the game.
Therefore, an incentivized engagement campaign tied into game days should maximize the natural uptick in in app activity, produce high quality leads for future marketing and sales initiatives, and allow us to grow our authenticated user database.
Working with the team at YinzCam we identified a solution based on modifying an existing feature, that would save on time and resources. The existing feature provided an interface for users to upload photos as well as a voting mechanism, which took care of some major requirements, allowing us to focus on creating a campaign builder that would allow the marketing team to dial up and deploy activations though the CMS.
The above flow outlines how users would submit a video in a ranked voting activation detailing different interaction points across five screens.
The ability to customize campaigns created variations in the user flow depending on the options selected. Adding steps like SSO login, different media requirements, and voting features would alter the flow and needed to be accounted for. Creating flow maps for each instance helped our internal stakeholders visualize the value of building out this level of flexibility, and gave clarity of scope to the development team building the back end support.
The final product was a UGC campaign generator with options that could be set in the CMS and easily launched in the app, allowing the marketing team to run a variety of activations and contests throughout the playoffs.
On-court shooting challenges became trick shot challenges that fans could participate from home. Dance challenges lead by the Spirit Dance Team filled in for the fan favorite Dance Cam. The pride in wearing your team gear to the game was now something you could post to the app and show off your entire collection of memorabilia. A genuine game day experience delivered to fans through the app.
During the testing it became apparent that the experience could benefit form visual feedback as fans were submitting content multiple times during the time required to moderate submissions. To remedy this behavior, we added feedback confirming the upload was successful, and an indicator displaying the submission status while under review.
To create visual harmony the UI was designed on an 8 pixel grid. The grid was not only used for alignment purposes but also to manage the positive and negative space so that all elements on the screen maintained a strong relationship.
A successful submission added a content card to the gallery. During testing we noticed when content was captured vertically, the card thumbnail produced would not fill the frame in the horizontal card layout, creating an imbalance of visual weight in the gallery. To remedy this imbalance we decided to used the submission thumbnail with a bur effect to fill the card background.
The above is an overview of components designed for this feature. The MVP that was built and tested during the playoffs did not initially include the final UI components, they were scheduled to be included in the next phase of the project.
The overall objectives for this feature were to build a space for fans to interact and showcase fandom, and to generate leads. The engagement and adoption we saw was encouraging and gave the team a preview of how the app can provide value for the business and give our fans a rich mobile experience.
With an average of almost 30 submissions per activation the UGC feature proved to be a viable conduit for fans to engage with the brand and showcase fandom.
The option to add an SSO gate to these activation allowed us to identify users and track engagement activity, ultimately supplying our sales team with warm leads and providing greater insight for marketing campaigns.
I hope you enjoyed this project. Feel free to reach out for collaborations or just a friendly hello.
Have a great day!
