Boar’s Head

Boar’s Head is a line of premium deli meat and cheeses with additional product line offerings such as hummus, dips, spreads, condiments, and charcuterie.

Within the deli meat and cheese sector of the CPG industry, Boar’s Head has a 68% market ownership, trading the most with Oscar Meyer and Hillshire Farms. 

Role: UX Strategist & Designer

Tools: Figma

The Boar’s Head website is over 6 years old; it’s time for a refresh. Our task is to create a thoughtful, digital home for the Boar’s Head brand that allows users of all ages and levels of technology experience to easily and intuitively navigate the site. At every turn, we should be guided by a brand goal to answer the question: “Why is Boar’s Head Better?”

Challenge

Solution

We'll conduct a comprehensive UX/UI audit of the current website, pinpointing key areas for redesign. Guided by data insights and industry best practices, this audit will shape the design priorities for the new website, focusing on enhancing navigation, improving product discovery, and facilitating locating a retailer.

Research Process

After reviewing and analyzing all of the data available, we were able to identify user behavioral trends and start to document and realize unmet user needs.

01

Google Analytics: Top Devices & Pages Analyzed

02

Website Queries: Search Terms Categorized

03

Hotjar: Survey Responses Catalogued & Categorized

Our research and heuristic evaluation revealed several opportunities for the new website.

This case study will detail select recommendations and demonstrate the corresponding solve.

Site Architecture: Simplify User Navigation

Product Transparency: Nutrition, Wellness & Ingredients

A New Audience Uncovered: Wholesale Inquiries

OPPORTUNITY

01. Simplify User Navigation

“There is a lot of information there which is great but needs to be organized more intuitively.”

— Client Feedback

Looking at the Navigation, we notice a few things right off the bat:

  • There are 9 menu items in a single line ranging from Products to Search

  • The space between each item is sparse

  • We see that on hover, even more menu items are revealed.

  • Using Our Products hover as an example, we count 19 options in the form of mixed content types ranging from: (1) Product Types (e.g. “Turkey”) (2) to Product Preparation (E.g. Pre-Sliced) (3) to Collection (E.g. Bold), etc.

SOLUTION

01. Simplify User Navigation

OPPORTUNITY

02. Product Transparency

Over the past year “Ingredients” was the 6th highest search term, accounting for 39% of all website searches with over 2k searches/month.

Meanwhile, on Google

  • “Boar’s Head ingredients” has a volume of about 100 searches/month

  • “[Boar’s Head Product] + Ingredients” accounts for around 1,200 searches/month

Transparency is more than a list of ingredients & materials.

Consumers place significant value of importance on the source of ingredients; the origin of raw materials, the manufacturing, handling, and shipping of the product; and the sustainability, and policies of a brand along with labeling and packaging.

  • Consumers expect brands to provide complete and accurate product information.

  • Brands have an opportunity to gain market share by providing increased transparency.

  • Consumers are willing to pay more for the brands to provide transparent information about the product.

  • Consumers are open to using digital channels to find the information they need.

  • Lack of product information creates distrust and confusion among consumers.

Above you can see all of Boar’s Head competitors include ingredients on their product detail pages.

SOLUTION

02. Product Transparency

The new website should:

Feature ingredients at the product level

Detail the source of ingredients

Greater emphasis on the 5 no’s (All products: no gluten, no artificial colors or flavors, no MSG added, no fillers or by-products, no trans fat)

Make space for more details on ingredient sourcing, manufacturing/processing, sustainability and animal welfare

As you can see, we will introduce the ability to expand a modal window that includes all things nutrition and wellness.

Users can also elect to “learn more” which will take them to the nutrition and wellness landing page which will expand on: ingredient sourcing, manufacturing/processing, sustainability and animal welfare

03. Wholesale Inquiries

Our research indicates that there may be an underserved and very crucial market navigating to our website.

When prompted with a survey asking, “What brought a user to the website today?,” we received 27 responses over a 3 week period, which was the 5th highest type of inquiry, that indicated a user was seeking how to acquire product for their grocery store, deli, restaurant, and more.

Our research indicates that there may be an underserved and very crucial market navigating to our website.

We started to give credence to this need once we’d exported the search term queries and found the terms “wholesale”, “price lists” and “distributor,” and then validated this assumption with the Hot Jar Survey Results.

Let’s review, just a few, of the Hot Jar Survey Results:

  • “I am the GM at the private club in Westchester county NY, we would like to start using your product but we cannot find who distributes in our area”

  • “Interested in using your sandwich meats in our sandwiches at our bakery in Joshua Tree, CA”

  • “Exploring purchasing your products for sandwiches at our bagel shop.”

  • “Looking for a distributor in my area. 25801 - Beckley, WV”

  • “Locate where to buy product - Pizza and Sandwich shop located in World Golf Village, St Augustine, FL. Opening in a few weeks.”

This exciting revelation affords us the opportunity to address this audience directly and equip these businesses with the right information to further Boar’s Head’s bottom line.