P&G Media Optimization
Jun 2021 - Sept 2023
Background
P&G is the largest advertiser in the world. In turn, media advertising at P&G is a complex space. Historically, company brand media managers and agency partners worked together to optimize media advertising budget allocation across TV and digital media channels. This process was highly manual, siloed, and difficult to navigate. This project aims to transform the media planning process through algorithmic optimization both across and within media channels in a simple, intuitive ecosystem.
Product Commercial (1 min)
Role: Product Manager & Designer
Skills: Digital Product Management / UX Design
Team: Scrum Master (1) / Business Analyst (2) / UX Designer (1) / Data Scientists (6) / Engineering Lead (2) / Data Engineers (4) / Software Engineers (11) / QA Engineers (4)
Empathy Interviews
Through a series of nine empathy interviews, I mapped the current media planning process and uncovered needs and pain points of media manager as they develop their strategic (high-level) and tactical (low-level) media plans. While strategic and tactical media planning are related, users have unique pain points during each planning process, as each process requires different steps. Strategic planning comes first, involving a budget split across TV and digital media channels. After strategic planning completes, tactical planning begins, requiring more granular budget allocation within a media channel. During tactical planning, the media budget for each channel is allocated across sub-brands, ad formats, campaigns, and audiences.
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Problem Statements
Strategic Planner (product focused on strategic media planning):
How might we provide a simply way to optimally allocate a brand’s media budget across TV and digital channels?
Tactical Planner (product focused on strategic media planning):
How might we provide a simply way to optimally allocate a brand’s media budget within each digital channel?
Throughout the product design of both Strategic Planner and Tactical Planner, I guided the team through development of our Figma wireframes, application data model, and optimization algorithm. Leading our digital user experience design, I sought consistent feedback from stakeholders across brands and worked closely with our UI designer to communicate needs and ensure a seamless user experience.
NOTE: Only the wireframes are displayed below to respect project confidentiality.
Strategic Planner:
How might we provide a simply way to optimally allocate a brand’s media budget across TV and digital channels?
Sketches: Define key filters and visuals for media review and forecast modules with hand-drawn wireframes
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Product Design
Tactical Planner:
How might we provide a simply way to optimally allocate a brand’s media budget within each digital channel?
Plan Creation: Define plan requirements (region, brand, target audience, plan dates)
Scenario Constraints: Choose scenario objective (maximize reach, minimize budget, or maximize effectiveness) and media channel optimization constraints
Review Module: Allow media managers to review media performance on ad platform, channel, sub-brand, or campaign level
Implementation
Optimization & Results: Optimize scenario, view budget allocation recommendation, and save scenarios for later evaluation
Forecast Module: Allow media managers to forecast future media reach on ad platform, channel, or campaign level
Throughout the implementation process of both products, I worked to prioritize the most important needs identified for the minimal viable product (MVP). Data validation, algorithm quality, and an intuitive user experience were top priorities across both products.
NOTE: Brand, country, media audience, and cost data is omitted from the below images to respect project confidentiality.
Strategic Planner
MVP Requirements:
Users first select a media objective and constraints for input to the budget optimization algorithm.
After scenario optimization, users evaluate their optimization results across KPIs in a tabular and/or graphical format.
This view allows users to take a closer view at the reach vs. budget graph by media channel for further optimization insights.
All media plans and scenarios are saved on this page and can be filtered for easier search.
Tactical Planner
MVP Requirements:
Users first navigate to the platform, channel, sub-brand, or campaign level and filter data for reviewing media performance.
Based on the filters selected on the previous screen, users view their historical media reach performance here.
Users can deep dive into their media performance for more granular insights here.
The reach forecast capability allows users to select a series of algorithm input criteria and view projected reach on a platform, channel, or campaign level.
Testing
Strategic Planner
“The most useful element is being able to build out existing plans and generate reach estimates”
“It’s helpful to readjust digital budgets.”
I met directly with product users and stakeholders for feedback before scaling Strategic Planner to 10 countries across 5 brand categories driving a 5-7% media spend reduction. I identified the following key improvements through my user testing:
Can we improve application performance so that optimizations and selections run more quickly? COMPLETED
Can we provide capability for users to generate and analyze multiple scenarios at the same time? COMPLETED
Can we connect this application to other applications in the planning process? ON PRODUCT ROADMAP
Tactical Planner
“This navigation feels seamless.”
“If this was the end product and there was no more innovation or iterations on this, we would be thrilled.”
I conducted thorough user feedback sessions with our US category pilot users before scaling Tactical Planner to other categories and delivering >10% in increased media reach at similar spend levels. I identified the following key improvements through my user testing:
Can we expand the application to additional ad platforms? IN PROGRESS
Can we provide capability for scenario comparison in the forecast module? ON PRODUCT ROADMAP
Can we provide users with the opportunity to save forecast scenarios? ON PRODUCT ROADMAP
Learnings
Stay Close to Users: I maintained regular weekly communication with category stakeholders and users throughout the design and build phases to ensure I met and exceeded user needs.
Collaborate with the Right People: I partnered with stakeholders, software engineers, data scientists, and data analysts to ensure a seamless user experience, data quality, algorithm accuracy, and product scalability.
Focus First, Then Scale: I gathered requirements from only three markets before scaling the solution further to tackle core user needs first and integrate unique market needs later.
Next Steps
Leading the design and development of my first two products in an industry setting, I gained expertise in product design and development. Eager to learn more about brand consumer needs and digital user experience design, I have transitioned to my current role as a Senior Marketing Technologist in Baby Care focused on leading the media audience strategy and guiding the digital user experience design of media reporting capabilities. I have successfully transitioned ownership of both Strategic Planner and Tactical Planner to a new product manager who will continue designing and developing new features on the product roadmap.