Justin Burrows:

What happens in ecom when you catch lightning in a bottle, or more specifically, lightning in a 30 ounce stainless steel vacuum insulated tumbler. Today we talk to Michael Francis of Alva, the agency behind Stanley1913.com, home of the viral hydration phenomenon known simply as the Stanley Cup. Michael talks about the needs of the brand and the needs of the technology, blending the creative and the practical, anticipating the needs of the customer with accountable design. Grab your Barbie crossover, Stanley quencher. Let's drink it in.

I'm Justin Burrows. This is commerce chats by high velocity.

Hi, this is Justin Burrows. I'm welcoming, welcoming Michael Francis, the executive creative director at Elva. Welcome, Michael. Thank you for for joining me today.

Michael Francis, Executive Creative Director at Elva:

Hi, Justin. Thanks for thanks for having me.

Justin Burrows:

So can you talk me through a little bit about the process of what you what you do for your clients at Elva?

Michael Francis:

We're a digital agency specializing in branded commerce solutions. And so, you know, really talk about bringing that brand to life in an, in an interactive e-commerce, output. So really understanding the brand the brands expectations and the, ah, the products that they're trying to sell and then bringing that to life. So, you know, we've recently done Stanley Comm, Reef Comm and Cooler Comm, all three different types of brands. And so that process really starts off with understanding the brand and understanding what their wants and needs, desires, expectations are.

Michael Francis:

Some brands are going through a brand evolution. Some some brands are just wanting to enhance their product or brand storytelling. And so making sure that customers are engaging with the brand, but also effortlessly shopping effortlessly and intuitively all the way through checkout. you know, that process starts with digging in, understanding the brand, but also understanding what their needs are from a technology perspective as well. As we start to get into more development with Shopify, uh, and really understanding their needs in terms of expectations, uh, shipping all, all this, all that sort of stuff. But the the core focus is really on brand itself, that branded experience.

Justin Burrows:

It's interesting because you think of design as just kind of like a, you know, making things pretty, but it really does have an impact on every part of the customer journey you're mentioning. Like, like with the the experience with shipping. That's not something you would necessarily think of when you think of design. But I would imagine that's a very complex and potentially confusing interaction for the customer.

Michael Francis:

100%, it's all the way around. So when we talk about design, we're talking about creative brand design, but also UI and UX design as well. And so finding that balance throughout the whole customer journey. So when we talk about, let's say checkout or shipping, you know, understanding how we're educating around the customer needs when they're going through that part of the shopping experience. And so making sure that X is accountable. So a part of our process within the creative process and going back to your earlier question is really helping to find what that customer journey is. Excuse me. And putting that heavy focus on UX itself. So creating that brand or that interactive architecture, I like to call it the blueprints. You know, thinking about taxonomy navigation, education, how content sits. You know, that's all part of design. It's not just the fonts and the colors and the the branded elements. It's the the interactive design. And the ecommerce design is really combining that UI UX with that brand design focus.

Justin Burrows:

Yeah. And I just just as a point of clarification, when you say Stanley, you don't mean Stanley Black and Decker, you mean the cool Stanley. Not to say that Stanley Black and Decker isn't isn't cool. I mean, I, I love you know, a tape measure as much as anybody else, but you're talking about the, the the the mug, right. The mug people.

Michael Francis:

Yeah. The the cup that everyone is carrying around right now.

Justin Burrows:

Absolutely amazing. What's it like working with, a brand that is like of the moment? Do you feel a sense of urgency to really get get in there?

Michael Francis:

Yeah. You know, it's funny. They came to us, with the, with the ask of creating an experience that allowed them to launch 98 products for the year of 2024. This year. So we had to create a brand or interactive architecture that allowed them to effortlessly merchandise those 98 products, you know, on a on basically on a daily basis. So working with them is highly collaborative. You know, we act as an extension to our, our client's teams. And again, going back to understanding their expectations, their needs, their business needs and making sure that their merchandising capabilities are on brand, have that emotional aspect to the brand, but also are meeting their needs from a from a business perspective in terms of promoting their new merchandise, promoting campaigns and figuring out how that's going to roll out with them. So it's it's been a great journey. and we continue to work with them to this day.

Justin Burrows:

That's amazing. I always like, projects like that. I think it's because I'm deadline oriented but it's like, we gotta put on a show to save the orphanage, and we gotta do it by June, you know? And then everybody kind of focuses up. I feel like right now in e-commerce, there's a lot of very established, I don't know what you call them, design patterns, page patterns, like your product detail page, product listing page, you're talking about shipping cart and checkout there. You know, we there are certain familiar patterns that kind of get used over and over. Do you see those though, like as a useful foundation? Do you see them as a yoke? How do you work with these old saws of of e-commerce design?

Michael Francis:

Totally. you know, they are a foundation. They always start off in terms of because that's what that's what, everybody knows and is familiar with. Now. It's really around the brand's needs and product needs as we get down to, let's say, a product detail page around what's needed. Now, you get into a lot of subjectivity around, you know, how page is laid out, but really the primary kind of best practices around the page, like a product detail page, is making sure the add to cart button is is is visible content, around diving in around details of that product, etc.. So yes, there are best, best practices, you know, type of foundational elements. But again, going back to it really depends on the brands and how far they want to push it or how far they want us to push it and to take it to, let's say, a more of a innovative or inventive approach.

Justin Burrows:

Yeah, I see that kind of with, couture brands or a brand where you're trying to give off. There might be a, a, a commerce element to it, but really they're just trying to have this big experience, you know, like they sell like I saw one. It was like they sold gigantic, gigantic puffy jackets. And the the PDP was almost a little bit of a puzzle, but it did a lot of really interesting, engaging stuff. But I guess if you're selling gigantic puffy jackets that cost $4,000, that's different than, you know, I would really like to have this thermal mug, you know, and I want to be able to see it and be able to buy it easily. now.

Michael Francis:

Yeah. I mean, when you talk about thermal mugs or puffy jackets, that's still an emotional purchase, right? And so that's where the brand really can come out and convey themselves around, diving into an experience that that promotes or evokes that, that brand emotion. So if you talk about that PDP, that was a puzzle, right That's that's the emotional connection that they're making with their customers, even in probably from an in-store experience as well, they're carrying that over to an online digital experience that allows the customers to connect both online and offline with that emotion. So, you know, we'll back up here, give you a little history. When e-commerce first started, it was essentially led by technology, right. And technology, the technology team it we're making all the decisions right up until about probably, I would say seven, six years ago now that these online businesses have evolved. You know, there are e-commerce teams, there are brand teams, there are technology teams. And they're starting to understand that working together is more efficient and produces a better outcome. And so when we talk to when we lead in and talk to these, these companies wanting a new experience, there are multiple conversations going on right there. There's the e-commerce team, there's a marketing team, and there's sometimes a technology team depending on the size of the company. And so understanding that it's like a symphony, right. And so when we have these conversations and we start these projects with them, we're having conversations that align with each part of that, each part of that, portion of the, of the build. Right. And we're aligning them together internally and getting together, having the, the external teams or our partners, basically come together and have conversations during that project. I don't know if that really makes sense, but aligning those conversations, you know, we're aligning those conversations and somewhat being the, the orchestrator, the, the director of of those teams basically having conversation and making them align with you, maybe the experiences that they're not used to, but, you know, that's that those times are changing. And when we talk to these brands, they understand that they understand that path and they understand the steps that they need to go through. And so, you know, they're pretty buttoned up these days. So it's definitely changed from where we're at, you know, five, six years ago.

Justin Burrows:

Excellent. Well, Michael Francis, thank you for joining me today. I really I really appreciate it. I hope we get to talk again soon.