Under recommendation I was approached by Umbrella Promotional Risk Management Ltd, to transform the campaign effectiveness of an e-commerce automotive sector client, Constellation Automotive Group; delivering a new UX strategy and design assets for cinch.co.uk

The Challenge:

Cinch had an urgent deadline before their sponsorship deal with ITV went live on the primetime TV (Sat 12 Feb 2022), the programme was a music show called ‘STARSTRUCK’, presented by Olly Murs.

Rather than unifying content, the existing cinch presents site displayed two very individual reference points — partners & competitions, with a primary focus on partners. Although a roster of big brand partners instills credibility and confidence at top-level, it was not the main hook for prospective consumers. It was clear cinch marketing drivers were poised to deliver footfall via targeted campaigns by category / interest; so it was important to ensure digital markers prequalified the content upon which users would land, all within a very tight timeframe with many key stakeholders to bring together.

The Solution:

The cross-sell of other products and services were to remain secondary and displayed as such, using less real-estate on cinch presents to maximise the chance of users following through with the initial CTA. For example, it makes sense that a visitor engaged by the TV show Starstruck will be stimulated by music, therefore The British Motor Show should remain secondary to The Summer of Music. People entering competitions and prize draws are more likely to engage with cinch through ‘fear of missing out’ and creating some urgency. If one were to look at the incredibly successful BOTB “win your dream car competition” there was an abundance of winner case studies within immediate sight, which gave the whole offering soul and ultimately breeds consumer confidence.

A countdown timer against each draw incentivised entrants and helped generate a much stronger conversion, this coupled with incremental e-shots displaying the competition deadline helped reignite interest for those that dropped off (once signed-up to a dedicated app etc.). The inclusion of smart objectives and tools; such as an ability to add an event and competition dates to a user’s calendar, cinch engaged its audience that much deeper with relevant forthcoming experiences. A user was then allowed to add sponsored cinch events and competitions automatically to their calendar, by category further benefitting from automatic entry to draws, without having to re-enter their details when fully signed up; opening the door for affiliate marketing and vendor ticket sales.

Cinch are in the business of selling cars, however we they capitalised on the car users love of music, gauging individual interests through site use and more strictly within profile settings once / if logged-in; under regulatory constraints including GDPR, DPA and so on across personal information held and passed on to third parties alike.

Additional reach was achieved when suggesting entrants invite-a-friend, which also doubled their chance of a winning the ITV Starstruck competition.

The Benefits:

Constellation Automotive Group and cinch enjoyed an unprecedented level of prospective consumer engagement across its digital platforms, resulting in a dramatic uptake of subscriber contact information being placed not seen before.

Phase II, UX Design (rest of site), X-Sell + Automation:

A broader UX strategy across the remainder of cinch presents, exploring the implementation of a dedicated app, integrated calendar and conversion strategies between the two platforms; API feeds / scraping data and presenting key-stats live across group site(s) to breed additional consumer, investor and stakeholder confidence.

Constellation Automotive Group is the largest vertically integrated digital car marketplace in Europe, combining the leading digital brands across the segments of consumer to business, business to business and business to consumer.