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Overview
My role in the 2019 Bord Bia rebrand was Digital Design Director, where I collaborated with multiple agencies to reposition the brand through a digital lens.
As Design Director, I led our agency’s tender submission for Bord Bia’s digital portfolio. We were fortunate to be the selected agency, giving me the opportunity to develop the design strategy for their web presence.
The Challenge
As the Irish Food Board operates across diverse international markets, one of the key challenges was implementing a unified approach across its digital ecosystem. Various marketing teams managed different websites, frequently launching new sites for specific food products. This led to difficulties in maintaining a consistent Bord Bia brand identity, as many of these websites deviated from the core branding guidelines. The lack of uniformity made it challenging to track and manage the overall brand presence.
Approach
This was the first project of its scale within the company, and as Head of Design, I led the strategy and approach, overseeing budgets, timelines, and team management.
We began by analysing the digital landscape and conducting a comprehensive audit. This involved researching each marketing team to identify which websites they managed, followed by individual audits of each site. This process allowed us to empower the teams by providing insights into how their audiences interacted with the websites. Our findings revealed that some sites were receiving as few as 200 visits per month.
Using the available data, we regrouped with Bord Bia to define clear website objectives, which then informed the development of Bord Bia personas. Each website or entity was strategically positioned within the new Bord Bia digital ecosystem. This later influenced the content strategy and Information Architecture.
Overall, my design team audited 25 websites, with a focus on key metrics such as analytics, performance, usability, and commonalities.
A critical aspect of our approach was the creation of a digital toolkit for the marketing teams. This allowed us to establish rules that ensured consistent branding across all sites. Our team developed a user-friendly design system, which was complemented by content guidelines and module functional specifications. These resources were essential in preserving the design integrity of the overall project.
