Beam Suntory - Case Study

The Ask

Create a single source of truth for all product information and assets, along with customer facing portals in order to deliver the consistently best content to a vast network of US and international retailers that sell Beam Suntory’s diverse product range.

Project Overview

Beam Suntory is the third largest producer of distilled beverages worldwide.

Today’s convenience economy and the related consumers’ habits require a richer set of digital product content and assets than ever before. Beam Suntory’s current systems and processes were not ready for this changing landscape. A new set of systems and properties were needed to support:

100’s of Spirit Brands including Jim Beam, Maker's Mark, Courvoisier, and Canadian Club
100,000’s of unique bottle SKUs sold around
the world
Complex distribution and resale channels that require a vast array of digital product content for commerce

My Contributions

Headed the team to win the business through proposal writing and client pitch.
‍
Led the design team from discovery through design to hand off to the development team.
‍
Deliverables and Tasks: Interviews, personas, competitive analysis, sitemaps, wireframes, user journeys, look and feel

How We Got There

Below is an overview of the process used to create the digital user experience for Beam Suntory. It starts with establishing empathy with the users. Once we have an understanding of who the user is we go deeper into learning about the unique experiences that they go through and how it shapes their needs. This is analyzed, broken into various flows that establish a clear path for the right solution. Finally, a design emerges that is based on an understanding of the needs of the user.

➊

Empathize

➋

Define

➌

Ideate / Prototype

➍

Design

➊ Empathize

Persona

What is your main priority?
‍Being on top of surge shopping during holidays and events.

Needs to Accomplish…
‍Populate our digital channels with product information and promotional content.

What keeps you up at night?
‍The overwhelming number of data sources that are necessary to review in order to get the latest content. This includes: Excel files, PDFs, websites and other historic data sources.

Antonio - Ecommerce Manager

After interviewing project stakeholders at Beam Suntory we were able to have a better understanding of the target users and constructed a few personas. Antonio, an Ecommerce Manager for a regional liquor distributor was one of the main personas that was used to represent typical use cases. Antonio is responsible for ensuring that all digital channels are populated with the latest product information. This could include product descriptions, product shots, lifestyle images and other product data.

Common Scenario

As part of our effort to build empathy for the user, brief storylines are constructed to represent a common scenario that the user might confront. The story below takes us through an experience common to someone like our persona Antonio, where he sees that National Bourbon Day is coming soon and he will be responsible for ensuring that all of the content on the company's digital properties are up to date with the latest product and promotional content for all of their bourbon products.

01 ⟶

Check content calendar



With National Bourbon day coming up it’s a great time to promote bourbon on our website.

02 ⟶

The right brand



Jim Beam is a great choice to promote. Time to update the info on our website

03 ⟶

Data sources



I have excel sheets and pdfs and I can search the web to get content.

04 ⟶

Search online



I found some info online. I hope it’s accurate and up-to-date.

Post and hope



I’m going to post the info to our website and hope for the best.

It would have been nice to include some lifestyle shots — Oh well.

➋ Define

Data Models

With the support of data models, we are able to structure a user experience that takes into account the wide variety of products, product information and associated variants.

Single Source Of Truth

The holy grail for product managers, marketers, and e-commerce professionals is the single source of data truth that can populate any channel and keep in sync as changes occur. Additionally, the need for local, and regional information to be delivered accurately is key. We helped Beam Suntory tap into the power of a PIM (Product Information Management) solution in order to deliver content to their retailer customers around the world with a portal filled with downloadable product information including: portfolio guides, sell sheets and online learning tools.

➌ Ideate / Prototype

Flowchart

eSpirits Portal

Below is a map of the screens for the eSpirits portal. Users login and collect downloadable product information as if they were shopping online. Product information and assets like photos and PDFs that are associated with the hundreds of spirts can be searched for through a user experience that mimics online shopping. But rather than filling their shopping cart with bottles of liquor, their carts get filled with digital assets.

Portfolio And Sell Sheets

Data points are laid out in a logical structure for the product portfolio and sell sheet templates. These sheets pull in content from the PIM (Product Information Manager.)

Sell sheet sketch

Sell sheet wireframe