Project Overview
- Company: Nestlé (Multiple Brands)
- Industry: Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Food & Beverage
- Project Type: UX Strategy, Content Architecture, Digital Brand Management
- Timeframe: January 2016 – July 2017
- Role: Group Experience Director
Project Context
Nestlé is one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, managing an extensive portfolio of household name brands like Coffee-Mate, Lean Cuisine, Nespresso, Nestea, and Skinny Cow.
Each of these brands had its own marketing and digital presence, but Nestlé faced a common challenge:
- No two brands followed the same digital strategy, creating inefficiencies in design, content, and execution.
- Marketing teams operated in silos, making it difficult to scale best practices across multiple web properties.
- Campaign-driven websites required constant rebuilding, resulting in high costs and inconsistent user experiences.
Nestlé was managing only two brand websites within the agency, but after the successful relaunch of Coffee-Mate, more Nestlé teams began requesting UX and digital support.
As Group Experience Director, I was responsible for leading UX, content, and architecture efforts across multiple Nestlé brands, ensuring:
- Digital experiences were more structured and efficient, reducing long-term maintenance costs.
- Content strategy was optimized, making it easier for brands to manage and update their websites.
- Scalable UX principles were established, allowing Nestlé to extend digital best practices across its portfolio.
This project wasn’t just about improving a single site—it was about building a repeatable UX process that Nestlé could apply across multiple brands, creating efficiency and consistency at scale.
The Challenge / Opportunity
The Problem
Nestlé’s brands had fragmented digital strategies, leading to inefficiencies and inconsistencies:
- Each brand had a different web approach, creating unnecessary complexity.
- Campaign-driven websites were treated as one-off projects, requiring constant rebuilds.
- Content was unstructured, making it hard for marketing teams to manage updates efficiently.
- Design lacked a unified system, leading to inconsistencies and higher production costs.
The Opportunity
Instead of redesigning individual websites in isolation, I worked with the agency team and Nestlé’s brand stakeholders to:
- Develop a scalable UX framework, so each brand could have a distinct identity while sharing common UX principles.
- Streamline content organization, making site management easier for marketing teams.
- Introduce reusable design and interaction patterns, improving efficiency and reducing development costs.
- Create a centralized strategy for all Nestlé digital brands, ensuring a structured, consistent UX approach across the portfolio.
This wasn’t just about fixing digital experiences—it was about transforming the way Nestlé’s brands approached digital strategy at an enterprise level.
My Role & Team
Role: Group Experience Director
I was responsible for:
- Overseeing UX, Content Strategy, and Information Architecture – Ensuring a consistent digital approach across Nestlé brands.
- Managing Design & Content Teams – Providing direction for design execution, content structuring, and brand differentiation.
- Developing a Scalable UX Process, ensuring multiple Nestlé brands could follow a unified digital strategy.
- Defining Information Architecture Standards, helping brand teams structure their content effectively for clarity and long-term management.
- Aligning Multi-Brand Digital Execution, collaborating with Nestlé stakeholders to ensure all teams followed a repeatable, scalable UX process.
This project required both strategic leadership and UX execution, ensuring brand teams, design teams, and content strategists worked cohesively toward a scalable digital transformation.
Strategic Planning & User Needs
Each Nestlé brand had its own identity, audience, and digital goals, but there were common UX needs across all brands:
- Users wanted intuitive, mobile-friendly experiences, yet some Nestlé sites were not optimized for mobile.
- Marketing teams needed flexible content structures, so they could make updates without relying on developers.
- Design consistency across brands was lacking, leading to inconsistent user experiences and higher development costs.
To solve this, I worked with Nestlé stakeholders to:
- Define a repeatable UX framework that could be used across all brands.
- Identify key content structures, ensuring sites were easy to manage and update.
- Create scalable design principles, allowing brands to customize experiences while maintaining UX integrity.
This ensured that Nestlé’s digital transformation wasn’t just a one-off project, but a long-term strategic shift.
UX Execution & Content Optimization
Creating Scalable Digital Brand Experiences
- Developed a structured UX approach, ensuring consistent navigation, content flow, and interaction design.
- Designed mobile-first experiences, ensuring all Nestlé brand sites were fully optimized for modern users.
- Created a component-based approach, making site updates faster and more cost-effective.
Improving Content Strategy & Management
- Led a content audit across multiple brand sites, identifying opportunities for better organization and usability.
- Developed brand-specific content frameworks, allowing marketing teams to easily update their sites without technical expertise.
- Improved site taxonomies, ensuring users could find relevant content more easily.
Executing Brand-Specific Enhancements
Each brand had unique digital needs, requiring tailored UX solutions:
- Coffee-Mate – Developed interaction design principles based on “The Bloom” effect, mimicking how coffee creamer spreads in coffee.
- Lean Cuisine – Created an innovative content filtering tool, allowing users to block out “diet” language from their content experience.
- Nestea – Helped define digital branding elements, aligning with an evolving visual identity.
- Skinny Cow – Used efficiencies from Coffee-Mate’s design system to deliver a cost-effective, yet high-quality site update.
These enhancements ensured that each Nestlé brand maintained its own identity, while still benefiting from shared UX efficiencies.
Results & Impact
- Successfully scaled UX strategy across multiple Nestlé brands, improving efficiency and reducing costs.
- Created structured content frameworks, making it easier for marketing teams to manage updates.
- Reduced long-term site maintenance needs, ensuring digital experiences remained consistent.
- Introduced brand-specific interaction elements, enhancing engagement and differentiation.
Rather than treating each website as an isolated project, this approach transformed Nestlé’s digital process into a scalable, efficient model.
Key Learnings & Takeaways
- Scalability is key for multi-brand UX – Establishing repeatable frameworks improves efficiency across multiple teams.
- Content strategy is just as important as design – Well-organized content makes site management easier and enhances usability.
- Digital transformation requires stakeholder alignment – Cross-team collaboration ensures UX decisions support long-term brand goals.
- Reusing design patterns reduces costs – Applying consistent UX principles across brands eliminates unnecessary work.
Final Thoughts
This wasn’t just about fixing individual websites—it was about transforming how Nestlé managed its digital experiences across multiple brands.
By implementing a scalable UX framework, optimizing content structures, and aligning stakeholders, we set Nestlé up for long-term digital success.