Situation

Early in 2009 when HTC made the decision to move beyond their “ingredient brand” strategy and commit to launching a global consumer brand. HL2 was selected to lead a significant website overhaul and a national positioning campaign designed to drive and support the launch of five new devices. Early in our HTC engagement, as we were conducting a full discovery of the site (i.g., information architecture, content strategy and organization, technology, user experience, search engine optimization, and analytics), we learned that HTC had committed to re-creating its global brand and was just weeks away from unveiling the new direction via a multi-million-dollar awareness campaign to promote HTC in North America. To meet the fast-approaching deadline, we created the new HTC.com in two phases. Phase one—a re-skin—would be timed with the launch of the ad campaign, with phase two, a full redesign—following just six weeks later.

Approach

Targeting all web consumers interested in purchasing a smartphone, we created a destination for the new HTC global brand at HTC.com—an engaging, consumer-friendly Web site that introduces the new brand and entices visitors to explore the HTC product lineup. To this end, we worked closely with HTC to design and execute a temporary website re-skin in just 30 days, and on a parallel path completely redesigning the North American site, including a new CMS and technology platform.

Outcome

HL2 launched this new site on December 3, 2009, successfully repositioning HTC as a household consumer brand and global powerhouse in the burgeoning smartphone market. So far, brand buzz is high; positive sentiment is up. Return visits have risen 25%, while bounce rate has declined 29%.