Company
ABS-CBN Corporation was the largest media conglomerate in the Philippines.
This specific digital project was done approximately two (2) years after the rise of Facebook in emerging markets, which brought about much “disruption” to the traditional media industry.
Scale and Goals
ABS-CBN’s news business spans TV (free and cable, with 10+ regular programs), radio stations, websites, social media accounts, and a Citizen Journalism user-generated content product.
We set out to transform its digital properties, to more successfully reach its target news audience, especially for critical issues. In doing so, we also had to address the business need of working out cross-channel collaboration and profit-sharing.
Role
Digital Strategy and User Experience Head
Collaborators
I worked with the Digital News Division’s Editorial and System Administration teams, the overall News Business Unit (e.g. TV and Radio), and the User Experience designer managing the News account.
Context
ABS-CBN News had the highest ratings nationally, although it struggled in the capital suburban areas. The company, of course, wanted to capitalize on its strengths, and maximize digital advertising potential.
The organizational challenge is that each news “brand” or medium is a separate business unit (e.g. the Weekday primetime show, Morning show, Current Affairs, Cable, Radio, Digital, Citizen Journalism business units). Each also had its separate news reporters or researchers. We, then, needed to create a new online information structure (This was aside from the actual design and development) that would meet both the:
- business goals — revenue, top-of-mind on high-news days, increased awareness from younger audience, and
- user needs (usability, relevance).
Work
As the User Experience Design Head for the company, I helped the team assigned to the account by:
- providing research insights from nationwide qualitative research,
- conducting stakeholder research to gather goals and considerations of the different business unit heads,
- conducting paper prototyping and usability tests,
- facilitating the content alignment workshops, and
- proposing the content-sharing approach.
Impact
The most tangible outcome was the new design and web architecture for all the news brands, and overall site.
What I find more amazing, though, is that we proposed a new revenue-sharing structure to them, along with a content-”windowing” or attribution process, among the business units.
We also helped the Digital News unit’s leadership address key issues for consensus, such as prioritizing sensational versus high-news content, who their target audience actually is, and structuring their content categories accordingly.
Unfortunately, because of the size of the undertaking, the entire overhaul took 3+ years, and I was no longer privy to the actual performance of the properties as I had left the company. Though there could probably be stats on how strong the online brand was in 2016.
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