Oliver Rubber, a leader in the retread technology industry and Michelin-owned company, needed a new look that reflected the company's devotion and quality within the market. The company was in dire need of a consistent and trust worthy brand message that would instill confidence in their customers and a central source that would meet their tire retreading needs. After an initial website and brand review and several user interviews, it was evident that the old Oliver website was indeed due for an update.
Truck Driver
George Cunningham
42+
George spends most of his time on the road delivering loads as a driver for a fleet owner company. Getting his load delivered on time is essential to his livelihood. When an unexpected event occurs, like a damaged tire, he needs to be ready to act using the right resources in order to get the job completed and return safely to his family back home. He doesn't like things to be complicated and prefers operations to be made simple and broken down easy to understand.
• Have a trustworthy resource for tire repairing needs and assistance
• Tools to help aid him in search of tire repairing facilities
Fleet Owner
Leonardo Rivera
50+
Sometimes being a fleet owner can seem like a logistical nightmare. Leonardo always plans for the worst situation. Having information at the palm of his hand that will help in fleet operations is a major plus. Anything that will help him make one less decision in the course of a day only improves his operation. He loves when his fleet is taken care of.
• A quality product that will ensure his fleet can get the job done and protect his bottom line.
• A reliable partnership and tire service alternative
• Access to retread catalogs and Oliver service materials
Operator/Sales Rep
Stanley Johnson
30+
Providing the absolute best care and service to customers is a standard that Stanley abides by. Whether its monitoring the retread process, providing road side assistance or educating, he is trained to meet the needs of his customers. Unfortunately, this can be an arduous process due to the lack or resources available to share with his customers. He believes he could do his job better if there was more awareness about the services Oliver provides.
• Educational outlet for customers to refer to and experience the brand
• Access to tire reference materials or catalogs for customer interaction
In order to better represent the company image, I complied information from the web usability study our research team gathered. I found that both truckers and fleet managers needed an online resource and retreading tool that was easy to use. After gathering user research, I decided on which features were going to be the most beneficial and provide the greatest value for our users. I continued the process by completely reorganizing the site content and information architecture.
A major step into creating the right voice and direction of the project was to define the brand attributes. After several interviews with both users and stakeholders, the right tone was established. It's crazy how much goes into the tire retreading process. The attention to detail and care involved when correctly repairing a tire gave me a new appreciation for those tires that keep their tread intact on the interstate.
It was time to gather unique assets that exemplified the brand and its tire retreading process. For this I traveled to a tire retreading facility to document and art direct a photoshoot that explained the retreading process and aided me in creating an emotional connection to the brand, its employees, and customers.
Organizing the major sections and features within the site helped pave the way for initial sketches to be created during brainstorming sessions. Here I was able to see how the new content was going to flow with the new features I decided to include from my prioritization exercise. Aside from the main landing pages, two main features were going to serve as the flagship web applications for the end-user. The tire retread selector and a dealer locator. The user base expressed a major need in being educated on choosing the right retread. Another pain point was discovered when truckers had trouble locating a retread provider. This is why I value the customer. Through their frustration and input I was able to identify key areas of improvement for the website and web applications.
Using the assets gathered from the photoshoots and custom UI graphics, I proceeded to craft a new bold and confident look that users could feel comforted by. It was extremely important that this look complimented the quality and reliability the brand offered. With a 100+ year record of service under their belt, there was no other way than to build a confident and trusting image like no other company had before in the industry. It was time to embody the image of America's 1st Retread Rubber Brand.
How else could we serve the Oliver customer understand the brand and provided insight about the retreading process? By creating a new retread process video and landing page. It was important that the customer to knew Oliver took tire care seriously. Showing the high level of quality control within their process was the solution. Teaming up with a creative director and a breaking up the process into educational steps provided a level a transparency and trust customers could identify with..
A retread selector was created to help customers choose products that fit their specific need. Choosing a retread is a bit different than simply choosing a tire for your vehicle. Essentially your selecting the pieces used to repair and create a refurbished tire. The main challenge was providing an overview of the product lineup, its benefits, and walking the user through the tool in their selection process while educating them at the same time.
To help connect the pieces, I sketched and wireframed the retread selector tool so that all requirements were accounted for. Having a mobile-first mentality kept me on track with keeping the tool simple and easy for users to navigate through whether on the road or at their desk.
Truckers and fleet owners were now able to choose a retread that best suited their needs using a step-by-step process choosing specific criteria from the selector tool. After a few iterations, it was clear that we needed to add a few features that would aid the user as they navigated deeper into the selection process.
Providing an Oliver recommended retread option that was based on the chosen criteria was another helpful way to assist the user in the selection process. I found that this helped the user especially if they weren't familiar with retreaded tires altogether. Lastly, giving them a tire comparison option allowed the user to make the right choice for their application.
One of the worst feelings truckers could experience is having their tire tread shred to pieces on the interstate. To make it worse, finding a retreading facility nearby was a hassle.
To assist the customer on the road, we created a dealer locator that was native to the brand. Through this web app users could save preferred locations within their user profile located on their route and view specific services offered at each facility. This service provided a more in-depth at a glance view of Oliver dealers compared to what customers were receiving from a standard web search.
As inspiration, I used my trips to the Oliver retread facilities, the working environment, and previous brand materials to influence the visual design direction and photography styling.
There was a lot learned from this journey. Revitalizing a company that had been around for 100 years who lacked a social presence had its major challenges. Isolating its core services, providing new product features and providing an experience that aided the target user base were some of the greatest accomplishments. Seeing and hearing customer reactions to the new tools and brand updates was very fulfilling. Oliver and Michelin were absolutely pleased with every step of the process. From planning to execution they said it exceeded their expectations in every way. Now Oliver could identify with their brand in a way worthy of their century long years of experience in the industry.
