Pom & Chi | Chamira Perera

POM & CHI ENGAGEMENT PLAN

OVERVIEW

Pom & Chi, an online dog clothing company that specializes in sustainable and thoughtfully designed goods for small dogs, participated in the Eunoia UX Hackathon with a goal of fostering community and boosting online sales. Our team of four designers was assigned to assist Pom & Chi in achieving these objectives.

2021 - Pom and Chi Logo_Social Icon 1.png

RESEARCH

We began by researching the Pom & Chi website, examining their pages to understand their values, goals, products, and social media presence. This research helped us identify opportunities to design a solution that fosters community and increase engagement. Additionally, we prepared interview questions for the Pom & Chi owner during our allocated interview time provided by the Eunoia Hackathon team.

We formulated questions for Julie, the owner of Pom & Chi, regarding her business and strategies for building community and increasing engagement. Some of the questions we asked included:

Have you ever collaborated with influencers to promote your company?

Can you give us an ideal of who your clients are? (age, gender, etc.)

What marketing strategies have you explored to expand Pom and Chi’s reach?

What social media platforms have you advertised Pom & Chi on?

PROBLEM STATEMENT

After interviewing Julie, we brainstormed ideas to address her business needs. We needed to increase website traffic, extend visitor engagement, and encourage online sales. Additionally, have Pom & Chi merchandise create sense of community through dogs wearing their products was a key focus areas.

IDEATION

Each team member contributed ideas to our Figjam board, which we discussed to assess the feasibility and potential to create high-fidelity mockups within the Hackathon's time frame. We generated a few ideas and decided to vote on our favourites. However, we realized that most of the ideas addressed one aspect of Pom & Chi's problem, neglecting the other part of the problem statement.

This was when I came up with the idea of combining multiple ideas into one plan called the Engagement Experience Plan. It integrates our favourite ideas and connects them through physical and virtual touch points, allowing Pom & Chi to create a sense of community through their products while also increasing online engagement.

After voting on our ideas we chose the top three choices to be:

A Pom & Chi sponsored influencer puppy meet and greet

A online puppy personality quiz inspired by Myers-Briggs personality test

A new line of products based on the puppy personality types

DESIGN

PUPPY MEET & GREET

The Engagement Experience Plan consisted of three interconnected parts. First, we aimed to create a sense of community by organizing a sponsored meet and greet with small dog influencers wearing Pom & Chi merchandise.

Inspired by SFUs puppy therapy event, 5-6 small dog influencers in the Vancouver area would be part of an event sponsored by Pom & Chi. Attendees could interact with the dogs and share their experiences on social media.

Personalized puppy influencer cards with QR codes leading to Pom & Chi's website would be passed out by the parents. The cards would act as a small takeaway from the event and be a touchpoint to direct traffic to the website.

The event space features a merchandise tent with signs for public awareness and website advertising. Specialized advertisements would lead to our puppy personality quiz, the next step in our engagement experience plan.

PUPSNALITY QUIZ

The Pupsnality Quiz is a creative twist on the Myers-Briggs test. We developed a web quiz on the Pom & Chi website for small dog owners to discover their dog's personality type, featuring fun personalities like attention seeker or door greeter.

Start page

Fun puppy questions

Puppy personality results

We also created a TikTok randomizer filter for dogs. Influencer dog parents would be encouraged to take the quiz and share their results, expanding our audience.

As a collaboration reward, we designed a line of small dog clothing based on the dog's personality types.

PUPSNALITY QUIZ PRODUCTS

We designed a merchandise line that complements the Pupsnality quiz, featuring patterns that match the personality types. This product line aims to convert quiz visitors to online sales while fostering a sense of community among dog parents whose dogs share the same personality type.

Pupsnality products

Detailed product page

Social media advertising

To promote the products, we would post on Pom & Chi's social media platforms and collaborate with dog influencer parents to create sponsored content. The dogs participating in the meet & greet event would showcase the product line, increasing in-person engagement.

RESULTS

We improved our plan after incorporating feedback from user tests and client check-ins. We explored implementation cost of the quiz and found affordable resources to present to Julie. Also in response to her advice, we transformed the puppy therapy concept into a meet & greet event. With these changes, we created a final video presentation for submission to the Eunoia Hackathon judging panel. We then presented to Julie, addressing her questions from our initial check-in.

Our efforts paid off as we secured 4th place out of 48 competing teams in the hackathon. Julie was pleased with the final product and impressed by our research for implementing the web-based components of the experience plan. Currently, we are in communication with Julie to explore the possibility of producing a product line based on the Pupsnality quiz.

Check out our final presentation video:

LESSONS LEARNED

This project taught me valuable lessons. As the product/team leader, I planned and organized meetings, facilitated discussions, assigned tasks based on strengths, and gathered feedback. I also learned animation techniques in Figma from skilled team members, which will benefit future projects.

Moreover, I improved my ability to handle critique. For instance, I initially planned a puppy therapy event for students, but after discussions and feedback, I realized rebranding to the meet & greet was a better approach. This change benefited our final product that was presented to the judges and Julie. Overall, I'm pleased with the project outcome and skills I acquired in a short time.