The challenge
How can we help a successful news platform that’s long outgrown its children’s shoes to prepare for continued and even more ambitious growth in the future? This was the key question when we started working with electrive, which began covering the topic of electric mobility in the German market with a daily newsletter and blog over a decade ago. Since then they have added an international counterpart, several newsletter verticals, a daily video update and a series of events and conferences both offline and online. In short, electrive became the platform for the emobility industry, covering individual transport, fleets and industrial vehicles.
Our impact
After a long period of organic and largely unplanned growth, almost every conceivable aspect – internal and external – was in dire need of a zoom-out and re-evaluation. Working closely with the electrive leadership and team, we covered all these aspects in a structured and focused process – (re)creating a solid strategic foundation, a reinvented brand identity and a thoroughly refreshed product experience across newsletters, web, video and events.
And it was worth it. Not only did the improvements result in consistently positive user feedback, but also a near doubling in the number of monthly visitors to the site.
Sensemaking and strategy
Is the team still structured and set up for success? Does the evolved family of brands and products still make sense? Is the Design still up-to-date and representing the brand’s values? Is the technical infrastructure still appropriate for the needs of a matured brand? What’s the vision for electrive going forward?
We tackled these and many more questions in a series of workshops with experts from all electrive departments before diving into a brand and product strategy phase, defining the precise purpose, target group and future vision for each platform, product, and service and their relation to each other.
Brand and design
With this strategic foundation (and thanks to a delightful collaboration with the excellent Amira Prescott), everything else fell into place: A consistent naming and logo family, a fresh design language covering all touchpoints from Digital to Motion and physical media. Key factor: the #onebrand approach that transforms previously inconsistent design and naming patterns into one logical system – reducing complexity, friction and establishing a strong system that can scale and won’t be outgrown again so easily.
“When we started working with Ponder, we had absolutely no idea, how deep we would have to dive into the electrive DNA. But we trusted their experience and that worked out very well.”
– Juliane Below, Head of Sales & Events at electrive
Product design and implementation
As the team at Sitedock, the project’s development partners, were rebuilding CMS and frontend mostly from scratch, we seized the opportunity to challenge existing content structures and editorial workflows. For the main website, this led to a simplified yet flexible overall structure that also gave way to a more refined design of various editorial formats.
This way, electrive’s quality content finally got the presentation it deserved.
Measurable results
While the improved 'look' was the key change from the outside, it was only part of the picture. The overall system created by the relaunch was a holistic productivity and growth engine for electrive.
The attractive, high-performance website doubled the number of users in a few months and has continued to grow despite the difficult political market environment.
The modernised platform made it easier to monetise traffic through better and more efficient advertising formats. And the clear brand and product positioning has made it much easier to attract new advertising partners.
