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Over the shoulder view of a man with a backpack photographing a plant

Mission Workshop

DESIGNING FOR PERFORMANCE

Mission Workshop brought us on for support through an exciting transition – expanding into a new market space. As an established brand, they know what they do best, so we supported them by clarifying their new opportunity while adhering to the brand aesthetic they’d worked a decade to build.

What is Mission Workshop

Mission Workshop specializes in bags and apparel that fuse tactical, technical fabrics with high end design. What started out as a bootstrapped company has flourished into a distinctive brand with cult following.

What We Did

Strategic Innovation
Digital Product

Various sizes and dimensions of website product pages

Mission’s Business Goals

We needed to build a product strategy that enabled expansion into a new market while continuing to support their current consumers, all while helping their brand aesthetic to evolve to encompass these new product lines.

Man standing in the rain wearing a wet jacket

Our Approach

We began with a comprehensive competitive and market analysis for both the space where they were already thriving – bags & gear – and the space they’d just moved into – apparel. Gaining insights through a product audit and deep dive into customer behavior on their website, we then did an customer sentiment analysis on their brand. This gave us insight into the way that consumers thought about Mission Workshop itself and in relation to similar brands.

This information helped us to craft a product strategy recommendation, as well as an information architecture and targeted content strategy for their website.

01STRATEGIC INNOVATION

Different markets, different challenges,  different goals.

Our two-pronged product strategy was built to ensure Mission could expand without alienating loyal customers. By creating two distinct personas for their two market segments, we were able to create an information architecture, content strategy, functionality and design recommendations that would create an optimal buying experience for each persona.

Black laptop featuring a website product page for weatherproof backpacks

Quality Content

Our content strategy outlined aesthetic recommendations for each persona. For bags & gear, this meant a lot of info – detailed specs and measurements, close up product detail shots, and videos that gave a 360 degree tour of items. For apparel, high-quality multimedia content and lifestyle shots that showcased the refined aesthetic of the clothing were designed to catch the eye of a more design-oriented persona.

Black tablet featuring a purchase screen on a mobile site

Two Android phones display mobile website product pages

02DIGITAL PRODUCT

Designing distinct experiences for different consumers.

We used Mission Workshop’s iconic brand look and feel to create a sense of cohesion, while targeted differences in functionality and content optimized the experience for each consumer. Our slightly varied layouts in product pages meant more flexibility on the back end, and a more responsive user experience on the front end.

Monitor showing information on a Mission Workshop product page

Monitor showing a product view of a Mission Workshop backpack

Desktop view of designs for Mission Workshop's outerwear page

The Outcomes

In this new design, we were able to marry revised functionality with an updated aesthetic to maximize conversions while ensuring consumers had all the information they needed to make a choice. For an elevated brand like Mission Workshop, we believe function should never come at the expense of form and beauty.