Go Ape is the UK’s premier adventure activity; encouraging its customers to leap out of their comfort zone and embrace living life adventurously through their treetop challenges.
As a brand that lives its values, Go Ape needed an online platform that was designed to suit an evolving consumer and integrated its ethos into the user experience.
Our challenge was to merge service and inspiration into an eCommerce experience that told their brand story.
We set out to put the customer at the heart of the adventure, focusing on their experience. Merging story, service and personalisation to create a brand-building online experience.
In order to understand Go Ape and their position within the marketplace, we spent time at different sites, becoming well versed in the brand, its offering, and the benefits it can bring to wellbeing.
We worked with the Go Ape team to develop their audience types and profiles, to better understand the customer and how best to serve them. This work was essential for us to understand how to connect with customers; whether avid thrill seekers or workplaces looking for challenging & fun team-building events.
Through our planning we were able to identify opportunities and enhancements to the customer experience, from streamlining the booking process to building retention and growing the tribe.
This project was part of a wider brand overhaul, so called for a deeply collaborative process – a unique multi-agency approach where we integrated with the Go Ape team, as well as their other brand, development and SEO agencies.
Our team spearheaded the user experience, working alongside ongoing brand work and the Go Ape team; we collaborated with key stakeholders, conducting research to identify clear KPI’s and unearth opportunities.
As the project progressed we were given the opportunity to own more of the UI’s visual language, experience design, and oversee technical implementation.
The driving force behind the design was the balance between passion and product. Simplicity was our core principle, stripping away excessive content, integrating emotional storytelling through compelling imagery and video while keeping calls to action clear.
While cutting the steps required to book an activity in half we were able to draw from locations and give the activities more context, painting a clearer brand story throughout the customer journey.
New, real, action focused photography brings the story to life and captures the imagination. A combination of in-action experiences and sensory close ups for key products allowed us to build a deeper connection with the intended audience.
We always aim for a digital experience to be at its best no matter the device, and for Go Ape a large number of their consumers would be coming to the website on their phones. This meant we had to ensure a mobile friendly experience that was seamless from mobile to desktop for those engaging with brand content and products.