English | Deutsch The average Virgin Mobile customer is still in his teens. His cell phone isn't for calling the office or checking his schedule; it's for connecting with friends, making plans, and downloading ringtones. It is for staying in touch with his culture, a youth culture that is always on the move. Virgin saw that its users cared more about community than utility, and knew it was time to change its image from a pay-as-you-go telecommunications provider to a youth wireless network. The company asked frog to create a website that would embody that change, shifting their online focus from the commercial to the social.
frog's design team began an in-depth exploration of youth culture, hitting the streets in hip New York neighborhoods like Williamsburg and the East Village to see what was happening. We found a culture that thrived on music and art, media, and each other. They wanted to communicate quickly and cheaply, not only through phones, but in every way possible - email, text messaging, note-passing, conversation. One trend, called war-chalking, even has people scrawling messages on sidewalks or the sides of buildings, graffiti in chalk. It's history and personal expression mixed together - a reminder both of the old Great Depression technique of marking bread lines, and of our own childhoods sketching on pavement. And its use now? The same mixture of community action and personal expression. War-chalking is used to advertise everything from free wireless spots and political movements to the identities of individuals. Its language is one of symbols and hints, attracting interest through ambiguity. It's tagging with a message.
The design team also conducted industry analysis to determine a new identity for Virgin Mobile that would balance the fashionable and the trustworthy, the edgy and the reliable. Because Virgin Mobile users are so young, parents often foot the bill for their mobile devices. The website had to be cool enough for its users, but professional enough for their parents.
frog wanted users to engage more fully with the Virgin Mobile website and the youth culture it represents. So we created an on-screen editorial magazine right there on the homepage, connecting users to interviews with musicians, articles on art and community trends, links to other youth sites, and local community service opportunities. This new section isn't trying to sell anything to its consumers; it's trying to connect them to the things they care about. And in the process, it shows that Virgin Mobile is more than just a service provider.
Visually, frog moved the site towards a young, sleek new look, deepening Virgin's trademark red and replacing bright pictures with a darker color scheme. The font chosen for internal headlines is reminiscent of the stenciled lettering of protest posters and urban graffiti. And war-chalking is subtly incorporated through a singular, stenciled image at the bottom of the screen, an intriguing clue that brings users who click it to a related Virgin Mobile viral information campaign. Attracting interest without giving everything away up front.
Practically, we focused upon simplifying the website, allowing customers to research phones and find community info without a fuss. Promotions were moved off the home page and replaced by a clean, new layout, with separate sections on products, rates, features, and culture. A task bar at the top and sitemap at the bottom of every screen make it even simpler to get around.
The site's combined emphasis on product information and culture encourages young customers to check it out, making it both easier to browse and easier to buy. And because frog completed not only the design, but much of the front-end coding for project, Virgin Mobile was able to launch the website only a few weeks after designs were finalized, an incredibly fast turn-around.
Customers love the simplicity of the design, its new offerings, and its community partnerships. Links to the site have been showing up on youth discussion boards and blogs across the country. And this new devotion to teen culture is just the beginning: frog's re-branding of the website provided an information structure flexible enough for further extension into on-site blogs, community posts and concert updates, music reviews, and other features.
